Quantum radio, p.27
Quantum Radio, page 27
She didn’t dare move then. A sudden reaction might imply guilt.
His gaze drifted to the open book.
“Reading A Fight?”
Nora didn’t trust her voice. She nodded.
The question was obvious. Why would someone in her position read a history book—someone who had lived it? She needed an explanation…
“Lately,” her father said, “I find myself doing the same. It gives you perspective on what we’re about to do. Helps me feel better about it.”
He closed the door behind him and continued speaking, not making eye contact. “They held us down like animals. I bet it’s easy for them… to press a button, and no one dies in the moments after. But we starve to death. A little each day.”
He inhaled and waited, but Nora said nothing.
“I know I’ve kept you in the dark,” he said. “I had to. I didn’t want to.”
“It’s okay,” she said quietly.
“It’s not okay. I knew you were going over there for the recon mission. I couldn’t risk you getting caught and revealing what we’re planning.”
He studied her. “I thought my life’s work would be saving Earth’s oceans. Things change, don’t they?” He squinted. “You watch your grandchildren starving… and then the government asks you to use what you know as a weapon to save them. What do you do?”
Nora felt her heart beating faster. What was he telling her—that she had children? Perhaps a husband too?
On her world, she had a younger brother, but he was unmarried and, to a large degree, had been adrift in life. Dylan had never found what he wanted to do or a person he wanted to spend his life with. On this world, had that changed?
Her father was an even bigger mystery. The man she had known—the Robert Brown from her world—was a reflective academic and, above all, a caring family man.
He was passionate about his research, which on her world concerned ocean currents and how they affected sea life. Beginning at a young age, he had taken Nora on his research expeditions around the world, to coral reefs and barrier islands, and places so remote they barely had names. And she loved it. On those trips, she developed a passion for science and a curiosity about how things worked. The father she had known had an infectious positivity and thirst for knowledge that had transferred to her very early in her life.
Where he wished to peel back the layers of the ocean and understand how the lifeblood of the Earth worked, to understand what lay beneath, for Nora, the great mystery was the human mind. In it, she saw what her father saw in the oceans: currents that shaped our lives, a murky sea full of wonder and mysteries, and things that lay buried, hard to reach, and even harder to understand.
She realized then why his disappearance when she was eighteen had been so difficult for her: he had shaped so much of her view of the world and her own identity. She had been about to leave home for college then and was already feeling unanchored. His disappearance had left her nearly listless in life, and it had taken years to right herself. Even then, she hadn’t made a full recovery.
This version of her father was different from the one who had raised her in at least one important way. He was more somber, almost regretful. Maybe that was part of the cost of war for this Robert Brown.
A knock echoed from the door, and a uniformed soldier ducked in and whispered something to Nora’s father. He turned to leave, glancing back at Nora. “Matthews is awake.”
Nora rose and followed him into the narrow corridor and to the med bay where Matthews lay on a gurney, talking to a Pax officer. Two medical technicians lingered nearby, watching with perturbed expressions on their faces.
As she crossed the threshold of the med bay, Nora caught a glimpse of Maria, who was also awake now, lying on a gurney on the opposite side of the room, her eyes wide as a medical technician quizzed her.
Nora gave a quick jerk of her head to the side, silently instructing Maria not to say anything. The younger woman nodded quickly, and the medical technician turned to look at Nora, who shifted her attention to Matthews.
The pilot had seen her and was raising his right arm to point at her, mouth moving faster now, the words still indecipherable to her. The only phrase she could make out was “A21.”
One of the med techs by his bed turned then and held up her arms. “Okay, this is too much—too many people, too much activity. Clear the bay.”
Outside the room, Nora’s father said to her, “Matthews is talking. That’s good. We’ll need to get your account too. Are you ready?”
“Just… give me a few more minutes.”
Back in the stateroom, Nora closed the door and leaned against it and exhaled heavily. She felt the airship shift again, turning toward some unknown destination, adjusting course based on the winds, perhaps. She needed to as well. She felt as though the walls of this strange ship were closing in on her. Most of all, she needed to figure out what exactly had happened on this world.
At the desk, she sat on the round stool, opened the book, and began reading.
THE FALL
On November 11, 1987, the Pax took the only route to survival left: they counterattacked the Covenant federation.
In a surprise attack launched by land, sea, and air, Pax forces punched a hole in the Covenant Seawall along the Irish and Scottish coasts, hoping to gain a hold in those areas believed to be sympathetic to the plight of the Pax.
Concurrently, French Canadian troops landed in the Normandy area of Northern France with a similar objective. The ultimate goal was to establish a beachhead from which to launch a new short-range missile the Pax had developed in secret. The target: the Peenemünde Military Research facilities in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state of Reich Europa. The Pax believed that if they could destroy the Covenant’s missiles and manufacturing capabilities, they could then sue for peace—or fight a war on more equal footing.
But that hope died in the three days that followed. The Covenant must have known about the attack. A16 missiles landed at the invasion sites just as amphibious ships made landfall. No prisoners were taken. In total, 147,302 Pax armed service members perished in the battles. But the worst was yet to come.
On November 13, the Covenant launched a counter strike against the Pax homelands—a rain of missiles that authorities still don’t have a firm count on. It is believed to have been in the thousands. They carried a new type of incendiary ordnance that delivered devastating effects, leveling cities and destroying major interstates and bridges. Fields in the American heartland burned with wildfire that water and dirt couldn’t extinguish.
America, Australia, Canada, and the other constituents of the Pax watched as their civilization was destroyed.
The years that followed would become known as the perpetual war—a time characterized by ever-present missile attacks. In the months after the fall, EMOs exploded nearly every week in major cities. Hot bombs detonated too. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the bombings—only a desire for terror from the Covenant. Populations shrank, due both to direct deaths from the bombings and to starvation. Just as many perished from losing their will to live.
The Dark Age gripping the Pax grew darker as the last survivors splintered into smaller, almost nomadic groups.
65
In the airship, shouts came from the hall. Nora went to the door and listened to the doctors and nurses barking orders.
She opened the hatch with a loud clang, just in time to see her father barreling toward the med bay.
Nora fell in behind him and stopped cold right inside the room. Matthews was convulsing on the gurney. Medical staff were working desperately to save the man. Her first thought was that it was an embolism. Or a heart attack.
She felt Maria’s gaze upon her, eyes filled with fear.
Her father’s voice was low and intense behind her. “Let’s go.”
She eyed him, silently questioning why. He took her by the arm, gripping tight enough to alarm her. Had Matthews talked? Did he know that she was an impostor?
He tugged her from the bay into the hall, where she reached out and broke free of his hold.
“Dad.” The word caught in her throat. It was a word she thought she would never say to him again. The act of saying it had an effect on her she hadn’t anticipated.
“What?” he shot back, seeming alarmed.
“What’s happening?”
His brow furrowed. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Nora shook her head.
“If I’m right, there’s one or more Covenant agents on this ship. They got to Matthews. You could be next. What you know is dangerous— worth risking an agent’s life for. I’m not letting you out of my sight. And you need to talk. Right now.”
Nora swallowed hard. “Okay. But bring Maria.”
He squinted at her. “The singer?”
“She may be in danger too.”
He raised his eyebrows but motioned to a soldier who had entered the corridor. “Bring Santos to Stateroom Two.”
Gently this time, he nudged Nora into the stateroom, where he closed the door, and she took a seat on the bunk. She had the strangest sensation then: of being a teenager, in one of those rare times when she had gotten in trouble and been relegated to her room until she confessed what had happened.
The hatch sprang open, and Maria entered. Nora rose, wrapped her in a hug, and whispered in her ear, “Stay quiet. Follow my lead.”
Nora didn’t yet know what her lead was, but she sensed that the next few seconds would determine whether they lived or died.
Outside the door, three soldiers stood guard, rifles at the ready.
Nora’s father locked the hatch and turned to the two of them, who were both seated on the narrow bunk now.
“What happened in Peenemünde?”
“What did Matthews say?” Nora thought that was a good place to start. And buy some time.
“That the A21 was finished and had already been mass produced—that the Covenant is much further along than we knew.” He studied Nora, waiting, but she said nothing.
“Matthews said the missiles were capable of carrying a payload that would completely wipe us out this time. Is it true?”
Nora was unsure what to say, so she said the truth. “As far as I know.”
“Matthews said they were set to launch in seven days.”
He cocked his head, waiting for Nora to respond to the unspoken question.
“That’s my understanding,” she said quietly.
“Then we have no choice. We will end the world so that we can rebuild it.”
Nora’s mind sputtered. What did he mean by that? Had her words—confirming Matthews’s account—sealed her father’s resolve for whatever action was about to take place? If so, she was now partly responsible.
She realized then that her father was talking to her.
“Nora. Nora.”
She looked up.
“How is she involved?” he asked, pointing to Maria.
“She saved me,” Nora said, watching her father for any indication that the lie was working. “She helped me get out of Peenemünde.”
He cocked his head and glanced between the two women. Nora wasn’t sure if he was buying it. She pressed on. “As a South American citizen, she can obviously travel to the Covenant.”
“Yes, but to a top-secret army research facility?”
“She’s performing there—at the launch of the A21. She was touring the facilities and testing the acoustics.”
He opened his mouth, perhaps to ask another question, one that might expose the ruse, but they were saved by a sharp knock at the door.
Nora’s father jerked it open, clearly annoyed.
“What?”
“Sir, we’re on approach.”
At that, he exited without another word to Nora, leaving her sitting on the bunk beside Maria, who turned to her.
“What are you doing?”
Nora leaned closer and whispered, “Trying to keep us alive.”
66
In Kato’s prison cell, the sound of the lock opening shot through the small space. The tall man with a goatee stepped inside again, this time holding a folder.
“Yeah,” he said, drawing the word out. “That line you shot us before is not playing well upstairs.”
He threw the folder on the metal table. “What I have here is a file on a Sicherheitsdienst Sturmbannführer—” He looked up. “Oof, that’s a mouthful. I guess when they integrated with the Covenant, the SS really wanted to keep their ranks and organization.” He tapped the folder. “Anywho, point is, this SD spook looks suspiciously like you—as in, he is you. As in, we know who you are, and ergo—by the way, I just learned that word, ergo, which means therefore—so therefore, ergo, you have info we want.” He held his hands up. “And we’re not super particular about how we get it. Hard way. Easy way. All fine by us. Not a lot of love lost for the Covenant around here.”
He waited.
Kato said nothing.
“Hey, it’s more paperwork for me if we go the super unpleasant way, but frankly, I hope you choose that. Frankly, I don’t mind the paperwork. It’s a bit cathartic, really, writing it all down, sorting through what happened in a room like this and how I feel about it. Writing can be therapeutic, you know?”
He stared at Kato, eyes like lasers carving him up, unblinking, cold and deadly. “So, what do you want to do, SD spook?”
“I’m not who you think I am.”
“That’s disappointing. I figured you SD operatives would have better lies than that. We get that one all the time.” The interrogator made his voice whiny and pleading. “You’ve got the wrong guy, really, I’m telling ya.”
“I don’t have the answers you want. I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Well, on that last point, we agree. But we’re going to start peeling the onion here and find out what you know.”
*
In the dank cell, Ty listened as the man called again, the same refrain he had repeated several times now: “Hungry? Talk, and we’ll feed you. All you have to do is start talking—and you’ll start eating.”
Ty’s jailer left the hall and returned with a metal tray, which he set on the floor outside Ty’s cell, out of reach. The smell of meat and butter and spices wafted through the small opening in the door.
It was a kind of torture Ty never knew existed: to be hungry and smell food. Still, he didn’t say a word. He knew if he did, it might hurt Nora, Kato, or Maria. Or himself.
But each time they brought the tray and took it away, he felt himself breaking a little more.
67
In the stateroom, Nora felt the airship touch down with a thud. A few minutes later, a uniformed Pax soldier pushed the hatch open and beckoned her and Maria forward, out into the hall and past the med bay, where Matthews’s body was draped in a white cloth.
In the cargo bay, the ramp extended to the ground.
The midday sun was blinding, and it took a few moments for Nora’s eyes to adjust. When they did, what lay beyond the ship took her breath away.
They had landed on a small ridge above what appeared to be a village with narrow thoroughfares. Shacks and small shops lined the dusty streets, a scene that reminded Nora of America two hundred years ago—a settlement on the frontier of a new land.
Three soldiers escorted Nora, Maria, and her father down the ridge, into the town and past the shops, where merchants were haggling over crates of fruits and vegetables and cured meat wrapped up tight. Their clothes were simple and nondescript, as though they had been resewn from other clothes—a patchwork of remnants. And indeed, that was what this civilization was.
In the street, the group stood aside as two tall horses trotted through town pulling a hollowed-out car whose roof had been sawed off, one driver holding the steering wheel, the other grasping the reins to the horses.
A large water wheel loomed at the banks of what Nora thought was the Potomac River.
As she took in the scene, Nora realized her father was watching her.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You look like you’ve never seen Camp Shenandoah before.”
“It’s… been a long trip.”
“You sure you’re feeling okay?”
“I am.”
After that, Nora made an effort to keep her expression neutral. Soon, it became obvious to her why the village seemed so impermanent. It was. The homes and shops were made of panels bolted together with tents and canopies between them. Large wagons lay empty behind them, conceivably waiting to be loaded again and moved.
As the small group ventured deeper into the camp, the merchants and settlers turned and stared. Children stopped playing, their soccer balls rolling into the street and behind the shops. People held their baskets full of fruit and bread and gawked.
At first, Nora thought it was the sight of the soldiers. But their gaze didn’t rest there. It was on Maria. And of course it was—she was a global superstar in this world. She must look completely out of place here.
Maria seemed to notice too. She brushed her hair in front of her face and hung her head slightly.
At a hobbled-together shanty at the center of town, Nora’s father opened the front door and told the soldiers escorting them to wait outside.
The home was as modest inside as outside. Two folding tables butted together served as a dining table. Canvas folding chairs, like one might see around a campfire, were arranged around a wood-burning stove with a pipe that snaked up and out of the back wall.
Through an opening, Nora caught sight of a makeshift kitchen with a portable grill on a table beside a cistern that appeared to be connected to a rain barrel outside and a pot for boiling water inside. Even the homes here were built to be moved.
A door opened and Nora’s brother ventured out, arms outstretched.
“You’re back!”
His face was the same as she had known, but it was more worn, the worry lines deeper, the tan darker, gray spreading out at his temples.
