Project - 16 (11 page)

She nodded and began walking over. Before she got too far, I
handed her a full glass of red and the bottle along with a small
wooden box that had the cutlery in. Then I went inside and spooned
the stew into two bowels I'd put on a serving tray along with the
bread and the pots of chilli sauce. I took the tray out to the
table and passed her a bowl.

“
Thanks,” she said. I'd turned the chairs so that they faced
the tree but were side-on to the table. It meant we could eat off
our laps and make it feel less like a candle lit dinner for two.
The evening was nice with a reasonably clear sky but for a few
wispy stragglers making their way east. The sun was setting on the
other side of the building but the glow managed to reach us a
little bit.

Riley was sat forward, her bowl in one hand and the bread in
the other, dipping and eating whilst staring straight ahead of her.
She ate at a fast pace and was half-way done by the time I'd
finished the roll.

“
This is good shit,” she said. “I didn't think the chilli
would work, but it does.”

“
Glad you like it,” I said. “MRE lemon pudding for
desert.”

“
Seriously? Man, that's my favourite. I’ve not had any of that
for an age.”

“
I have three in the cupboard and they've been there since the
first lot of students arrived. I’ve never had the stomach to eat
one.”

“
There's something wrong with you if you don't like the lemon
ones.”

She mopped the inside of the bowl with the last of the bread
and sat back in the chair, patting her flat stomach. She drained
her glass and poured herself another.

“
Man, you live good,” she said with a sigh. “Good food, good
wine, a fucking awesome view and what looks like a fucking awesome
nights sleep for me.”

“
My Dad said that if you enjoy the simple things you'll find
them easier to come by,” I said.

“
Your Dad knew his shit.” I poured myself the last of the
bottle. Riley stood up and stretched. “I'm going to get the
portable dish installed before we lose the light. That way were can
start getting feeds from the Colonel.”

“
What have you been using so far?” I asked.

“
Conventional satellites for my own stuff, they're okay but
not secure. I’ve got a full comms rig in my kit and once that baby
is running we'll be able to get much better Intel from the boys
back home. I'll have a look round for a decent spot in a
minute.”

She stood there for a moment as if poised to say something.
Then she nodded to me in the military fashion, turned and walked
back inside to get her kit. I guessed I was washing up.

Through the window above the sink I watched her unpack the
mesh dish that was no bigger than a dinner plate mounted on a
tripod. She opened it up like a blooming flower and raised it above
her head, the tablet display in her other hand. She began moving
across the open ground systematically, stopping every so often and
adjusting the angle. Then, when she was satisfied, she planted the
sharp points at the end of the tripod into the ground with a grunt
of effort. She sat down next to it, tapping away at the screen for
another minute or two as I finished cleaning the dishes. By the
time I'd done the drying she was on her way back inside.

“
That should do it,” she said, still looking at the tablet
screen which lit up in bright blue. “There's an odd thing
though.”

“
Odd?” I asked, draining my wine glass and rinsing it clean in
the suds.

“
I'm only able to detect three working satellites.”

“
How many do you normally access?”

“
Six. That's really odd.”

Riley stood there tapping away before turning and heading for
the stairs. I emptied the sink and carried the lamp to the front
door and locked it by sliding the bolt across.

“
I'm turning in,” I said as she climbed the steps in her bare
feet, the soft padding noise the only sound in the
house.

“
Same here. I'll let you know if I get anything,” she
said.

“
What time do you want breakfast?” I shouted after her but
she'd already gone into her room.

I did one last lap of the house, checking the doors and
windows were closed in the same way my Dad had done since as far
back as I could remember. Then I went up to the second floor and
decided to have a look at Dad's old books.

He'd found the library in the house when he'd arrived. It was
spotless and decorated in the usual style - walnut leather chairs,
green lamps, tall book cases and an open fireplace. He'd fallen in
love with that room straight away and there were enough books in
there to keep us both reading until we were long gone. There were
the usual suspects: encyclopedia, Reader's Digest, even some
contemporary fiction and I think I'd made a dent on one side over
the last few years. Dad had evicted one set of books from the
bookcase behind the door to make room for his own works. He'd
hand-written maps and routes of the country after the Panic on
anything he could find and gathered them up into volumes of
notebooks.

I began looking for anything that might give me a clue to the
whereabouts of the bunker we were looking for but only after a
couple of hours did I unearth something. It was in one of his later
books and it showed a roughly drawn shape of the country with key
cities marked on it, some different motorways and various supply
caches my Dad had set up at some point before I could remember.
What drew my attention to the map was the name of small black
squares drawn in pencil on the crude map of England. They had names
like 'Olympus' and 'Mecca', 'Jerusalem' and 'Bethlehem' and they
were all over the map like big black spots on a pale
face.

I took the book to my room and began trying to work out where
they were. I hadn't been in my room for some time, more often than
not staying at the southern edge of the field in the hammock. It
wasn't much different to Riley's room except the bed was made and
there was a slight breeze coming in through the high window that
brought the scent of winter with it.

There was a comfy though threadbare reading chair in the
corner next to a small table and a lamp stand. I lit the oil lamp
with a flame from the other and sat down, flicking through the
pages until I was confident I'd missed nothing. The paper was crisp
and dry and show some signs of age. I'd have to copy the map rather
than risk damage to the book. I saw my Dad's ink and smiled. In his
own way he was still looking out for me, still training me despite
being dead for so long. It was his legacy and made any decision to
leave the house almost impossible to comprehend at that
time.

I woke up before dawn with a sore back from the unfamiliar
bed and took the book downstairs with me. I fired up the stove,
opened the back door and went out into the cold morning that nipped
my nose and made me yawn. The sky was clear and there was a thin
layer of dew on the ground but not much. I put a pot of coffee on
the stove top to boil and found some plain writing paper to begin
copying the map. There were a box of HB pencils in one of the
cupboards and I took one and sharpened it.

I spent time comparing the map to an OS map I had and tried
to pinpoint where these bunkers actually were. Dad had left clues
or landmarks in the margin but because I wasn't overly familiar
with the larger cities it took longer than my Dad must have
intended.

After two cups of strong, fresh coffee and a slice of bread
and jam I was quite happy I'd located them all to within a few
miles. The rest of the work could be done on foot. There were
sixteen known bunkers in total and fourteen 'unknowns' that my Dad
hadn't explored. That was a lot of leg work and by the time we'd
checked out a quarter of them it could be too late. Our only hope
was that the Colonel could narrow down our options.

I heard footsteps on the hallway staircase.

“
Good morning,” said Riley as she appeared in the doorway.
“You get up too fucking early for me.”

“
That's why you never get the worm,” I replied.

“
Did you?” I passed her my map and she whistled. “You've been
working hard.”

“
There's too many for us to search. Have you heard anything
yet?”

“
Nothing,” she replied. She was wearing her running gear again
and the clean shoes were on her feet. “Still, I wasn't expecting
anything until this afternoon.”

“
Do you want a coffee?” I asked. She shook her
head.

“
I'm going for a run first. Then I'll wash and grab something
then. I prefer to earn my breakfast and it looks like you've
already earned yours.”

I heard her go out of the front door and set off in the same
direction she'd taken yesterday. I put my Dad's book on the table
in the hallway and began gathering ingredients for breakfast. By
the time I'd put a batch of crumpets into the oven I heard her
jogging back. I set some bacon rashers frying and poured two
glasses of orange juice.

“
Man, it's cold out there!” she cried as she came in, grabbing
a glass and draining it in one go. Sweat was pouring off her
forehead and it darkened her tee shirt. Again her shoes were almost
spotless and without stopping she took the stairs two at a time to
go and get washed. I'd already put a bowl of hot water and towels
outside the door to her room, knowing that Rangers were worshippers
of routine and that her 'run' would last almost the exact same
length as the previous one. I filled up her glass again and flipped
over the bacon, watching the dawn slowly crawl up the lazy sky,
almost sad to have to wake up to a winters day so early. I had my
own routine and I felt its primeval call. Breakfast first, then a
patrol of the grounds which took over an hour, then back for
another pot of coffee before retreating to the library to read or
fill in my own notebooks. I was hoping that Riley would have
something for me by that time so I didn't expect to be reading
today.

She came back smelling of deodorant and soap and wearing her
combats with the tight woollen jumper and high laced boots. This
time she wasn't wearing her hat and her damp hair hung loose over
her shoulders.

“
Bacon, scrambled eggs and crumpets,” I said, setting the
plate in front of her as she sat down. “There's some cheese in that
dish and sliced chillies in the other.”

“
Butter?”

“
In that dish there. Get some on the crumpets while they're
hot.”

She smeared some on as she tapped away at the tablet she'd
brought with her. I poured two cups of freshly ground coffee, then
sat down to eat my own breakfast. Somehow she was able to eat and
drink without taking her attention from the tablet. At one point
her fork suddenly stopped mid-air and the piece of bacon she was
about to eat dropped back onto the plate.

“
What's wrong?” I asked. It took her a moment to answer and in
the meantime she began tapping at the thing with renewed
enthusiasm.

“
I... I can't make it out... all the sites I go on, they're
going down somehow. People are posting stuff about the riots, but
then they're saying something about an explosion in Detroit and
Washington... Reports are sketchy.”

“
Is it getting worse over there?” I asked.

“
I... There's some photos... Oh my God!”

She turned the tablet to me and I saw the image but it took a
while to make out what I was looking at. Then she tilted the thing
and the image flipped and I realised it'd been upside-down. It was
a shaky picture of a large explosion cloud hanging over a city on
fire.

“
It's Chicago!” she said. “They nuked it!”

“
How? Who?” I said, my stomach turning. Riley's eyes had
filled and looked about ready to burst with tears.

“
They're saying it was a terrorist attack, a portable weapon
carried into the centre of the city. This is seriously fucked
up.”

“
What do you want to do?” I asked.

“
I... what can I do? I can't go back, they
won't...”

She put the tablet down and held her head in her hands. There
was nothing I could do to comfort her, there were no notebooks on
that kind of thing in the library and I felt strangely
uncomfortable. After a moment or two she wiped her eyes and carried
on with her breakfast in silence, eating slowly and mechanically,
the way someone does who's been programmed to eat regardless of
their emotional state. It was a safe routine that I expected
brought her some comfort.

I drank my coffee and put my half-finished meal on the
counter, covering it with a towel. When she'd finished eating she
looked at the tablet again and stared at the haunting image of the
mushroom cloud and the fiery skyline.

“
The fucking bastards,” she muttered. “Fucking foreign Ruskie
fucking bastards.”

“
You think they were Russian?” I said.

“
I'm fucking sure,” she spat. “Red fucking bastards. We put
down the fucking Arabs years ago in Syria and Baghdad so it ain't
them. There hasn't been an attack like that since...”

She slipped into silence again and I poured her the last of
the coffee. She sipped at it, just another part of the machinery in
her mind ticking over and she stared at the wall behind
me.