Project Reunion (28 page)

“Let’s go, then.” He led me upstairs to his bedroom, a cheerful little chamber with a window, twin bed, and a big easy chair with divan. “You take the bed, Dee.”

Once the lights went out, and sudden silence fell on the tugboat, I asked in the stillness, “Adam? Are you OK here? I wasn’t sure, for a while. I still care about you, you know.”

“Yeah, me too,” he replied. He sighed. “Always will. I’m good. I wasn’t, before Project Reunion. But now, yeah. I feel like I can breathe again. When I saw that video of Emmett on the first day, calling Ty Jefferson a hero? I thought that was so corny. But I was nearly crying today, meeting the Hoboken leaders in person. The guy who renovated this boat – he towed barges full of refugees from Manhattan out to the Rockaways, to escape into Long Island. Then he got sick and died. But he really lived first. You know?”

“Yeah. It is a city of heroes.” I understood exactly what Adam meant. My heart sang when I thought of these people, who never gave up. Under far more hopeless conditions than I ever had to face.
Maybe I can be braver, too.

“Cranky, cantankerous, rude New Yorkers to the end. Heroes.” He laughed softly. “Yeah, I’m fine, Dee. Having the time of my life. Emmett... He’s a hell of a commander. It’s an honor to serve under him.”

“He says the same about you. Good night, Adam.”

“Thanks. Sweet dreams, Dee.”

-o-

I dreamt I was on the African savanna. Horny hippos reared on their back legs, to roar honking challenge upon each other.

Adam joggled my ankle. “Rise and shine.”

The honking hippos resolved into foghorns, as ships of the fleet greeted each other through sheeting, possibly sleeting, rain. I peered out Adam’s window and found the prospect entirely uninviting. I tried to slump back under the blanket. But another foghorn, seemingly inches from my eardrum, shot me out of bed like an electrocuted cat.

“Your carriage awaits, Dee. Please get dressed. Before they honk at us again.”

Adam had already skinned into naval cammies. He stepped out to let me pull mine on.

“Carriage to where?” I belatedly thought to ask.

But the boat-vibrating engine awoke to nudge us back to the docks. Much lower and closer to the water than my previous ships in this harbor, and with the tide going out instead of in, the rank smell of diesel, raw sewage flowing out of the city, and decomposing bodies was much stronger than last night, despite the clean-smelling rain. The heavy tug was also rocking just a little, in addition to the engine thrum. But most of all, I’d now gone two nights in a row without enough sleep. My nerves felt raw, my eyes gritty, my stomach queasy.

I firmly told myself that Emmett and Adam did this day after day, yet the zealot fire of eagerness still burned in their eyes. Yeah, I wasn’t buying it.

The tugboat bumped into the dock as I arrived at the breakfast table. Two passing people grabbed me to keep me from falling. My stomach noted that even parked, the boat continued to lurch up and down, and side to side, on sort of a diagonal.

“Under way,” Adam suggested mildly, “you should always hold on to something.” He was polishing off the last scraps of cornbread and eggs over easy. “Especially when it’s slick out.”

“Got it. Have any oatmeal, or cereal?” I asked. I couldn’t face eggs. I wasn’t reconciled to facing day yet.

Adam handed me a bottle of dramamine. Sea sickness pills. “I don’t recommend you eat breakfast today,” he said apologetically. “You can keep the bottle. We don’t need it.”

“You’re eating,” I accused.

He laughed. No, I don’t suppose people who went to sea suffered much from sea sickness. Or at least, not when tied to the dock. “Come on. I’ll see you to your ride.”

As we emerged onto the slick deck – Adam clarified that I should hold onto the
boat
, not him, as we both nearly went flying – I found a Coast Guard boat awaited on the other side of the dock, where a couple of impatient crew waited for me in the sleet. “They’re taking me back to Emmett’s destroyer?” I asked.

Adam didn’t answer until he had me firmly handed onto the dock. “Camp Suffolk. Orders.”

“What? No!” I cried. “I need to see Emmett again. I need my stuff! Adam, I was going to work here today with the meshnet programmers.”

“Quarantine passengers for Suffolk are on their way, ma’am,” the nearest crew woman assured me, taking my elbow. She pointed down the dock.

A party of Coast Guard crew and a half-dozen figures in hazmat-suited yellow approached slowly from the far end of the dock. One carried a giant floppy hazmat bag. After a moment, I realized that the bag must contain the three-year-old that one of the meshnet programmers had.

“Oh...” I said sadly.

“Skip!” Someone yelled behind us. “You gotta hear this!” He piped a broadcast out through the tugboat’s speakers. It took me a moment to recognize the voice of the President of the United States speaking. Yes, my mental processes were slow. But I’d only heard President O’Donnell speak once before, at the rush inauguration last Christmas after the previous president committed suicide. We knew he was hiding in an ark. We didn’t know where, until today.

“My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you today from the White House Ark at Raven Rock Mountain, Pennsylvania...”

“The rat bastard,” escaped my lips in reflex. No one noticed my faux pas. They were too busy exclaiming worse.

“...Last night, brave forces of Pennsylvania led an assault at West Point, New York. This action was necessitated by flagrant violations of the Calm Act, perpetrated by New England insurgents, attempting to steal territory from the beleaguered and defenseless people of New York City...”

“Who the fuck is that?” Chas demanded from inside his yellow suit.

“We need to get you squared away aboard, sir,” a crew member attempted. “You, too, Ms. Baker.”

“Ms. Baker needs to hear this,” Adam countermanded. He put an arm around me.

“It’s OK, Chas,” I assured him. “You’ll hear it later, on Amenac.”

This wasn’t true, however. Only a few tens of thousands heard the actual speech live, at 7 a.m. eastern time, the day after Thanksgiving.

O’Donnell was never elected, but he wasn’t a complete moron. His defense of Pennsylvania’s actions might have been persuasive outside the ‘chaotic insurgency’ of the Northeast. Except for the fact that everyone already knew about Project Reunion, because we’d been explaining and marketing it full tilt world-wide for a month. It was possible – even likely, given the way O’Donnell was cocooned inside Pennsylvania – that the man believed what he was saying. Pennsylvania’s invasion of the Apple was justified.

And that would never do. While I spent a perfectly hideous day lurching through 70 miles of stormy Atlantic off of Long Island, too seasick to do anything but endure in a dramamine-doped fog, back home Lt. Colonel Carlos Mora and the Project Reunion team went on overdrive.

Chapter 22

Interesting fact: On the Forbes 2015 list of the best colleges in the United States, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (Army) ranked #11, just after M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The Naval Academy at Annapolis ranked #27, and the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs #38. These liberal arts colleges were not only academically excellent, and free, but paid cadets a stipend of $10,000 per year.

The meshnet programmer group was finally settled in at the Camp Suffolk quarantine, and I was dying to get to Major Cameron’s compound and collapse. Brave good intentions of us working on the meshnet together all day had not survived the sullen misery of seasickness and dramamine. None of us could think straight. We vowed to try again tomorrow – afternoon. Or maybe Sunday.

“But you can’t go yet!” Tom Aoyama burbled happily, leading me back to his office. “I’m on the 6 o’clock news on Amenac! I did a video interview with
Amiri Baz
this afternoon!”

I smiled at him as best I could, trying to look deeply impressed. The war correspondent did wow me, too. Was it only yesterday I’d spoken with Amiri at Midtown? My sense of time was warping. It was good to see Tom so happy, though. The Camp Suffolk quarantine had mushroomed in capacity since I’d last been there – just a month ago? Tom had gained 10 pounds, and looked clear-eyed and well. He adored the CDC team Emmett had sent him, and nearly worshiped Beth Spelt, his garrison commander, now promoted to major.

Tom’s office was another dramatic turnaround. The sad little cot and all the clutter were gone, providing open space around a proper little conference table. I sank to a seat beside Cam and Dwayne, and drooled at the smell. They were already chowing down on cole slaw and a huge casserole of gratin potatoes, crusted brown and oozing with good Wisconsin cheese, washed down with sweet apple cider. This was the first I’d eaten all day, and it tasted divine.

Major Beth Spelt’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker, reminding everyone of the special Amenac broadcast in 10 minutes. Apparently the entire garrison and quarantine were expected to watch.

“Oh, Dee, I spoke to Emmett,” Cam told me, when his voracious eating slowed and his mind was again available for such things. “We won, at West Point. HomeSec is still interrogating the prisoners. But he expects they’ll double down.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Pennsylvania will attack again,” Dwayne translated for me. “Harder next time.”

Obviously, I wanted to hear more about that.

But Cam asked, “Did you really sleep with Adam Lacey last night?”

I groaned. The entire effing fleet knew I’d slept in Adam’s bed last night. Apparently we were the joke of the day, providing levity in an otherwise rattling time. Perhaps we should have thought of that last night. But it seemed completely reasonable at the time. “I
slept
. Adam’s a friend. Emmett left me stranded on Staten Island. So I stayed on Adam’s boat.”

“Huh. Emmett said he’s your ex-fiancé,” Cam continued, eyes dancing with mirth.

“Oh, that Adam Lacey!” Tom helpfully waded in. “Yes, they were engaged last year when I met Dee. How’s he doing, Dee?”

“Probably enduring a thousand jokes at his expense today,” I growled. “Other than that, he’s doing great. Lives on a cool house-tugboat parked at Staten Island. Cam, did Emmett sound…cheerful? About Adam?”

Cam chuckled. “Sounded pretty pissed to me,” he confirmed.

“Mm-mn, girl, what were you thinking!” Dwayne chimed in, likewise laughing at me.

“God, this day sucks,” I said. “I want a do-over. I want more potatoes.”

Tom beamed the news broadcast onto his big display, and turned up the sound. The edgy music and
Breaking News – Special Report
banner were already playing, over the pretty and brainy ex-Yale acting student we used as anchor when we wanted one. She was still shuffling papers on the desk. Amenac’s short-form logo showed behind her, on a green-to-brown gradient backdrop, praying hands shielding a tender sprout.

The camera zoomed in on her solemn, weighty visage and perfectly glossed brown hair. She wore neat but normal layers, a thick natural wool sweater over cotton plaid collared shirt. She wore makeup, but only to accent the weathered outdoorsy New Englander look. The competition’s posers could wear elegant clothes. Our announcers had to look like they authentically lived with uncertain power and dicey weather like the rest of us.

Granted, feeling righteous about this was silly when I knew she was an actor.

“Good evening. This is Jennifer Alvarez, joining you from Amenac world headquarters in Totoket, Connecticut. For our broadcast today, we hoped to show you special holiday coverage of the triumphant Thanksgiving dinner yesterday in New York City. We will still tell that story.” Behind Jen, the screen showed previews of the throngs being fed in New York. Unsurprisingly, they were from my stops the day before, with Emmett. Amiri Baz and his crew had traveled on our ferry.

“But first. Last night at 9:30 p.m. eastern time on Thanksgiving, after the city dinner reached its successful and peaceful conclusion, armed forces from Pennsylvania attacked the New York epidemic border – the Apple Skin – at West Point. The attack was without provocation, and without warning.”

A graphic behind her explained where West Point was, on the Hudson River upstream from ‘NYC dinner’, a few miles inside the armed epidemic border. This switched to video of steaming wreckage at West Point. Medics carried off injured soldiers. I wondered just how many of the Army upper echelon had studied at West Point, like Emmett and Cam had. They’d captured easily recognizable landmarks of the campus on video, smoking in broken ruin and sheeting rain. Cam looked livid, face set in stone.

“Penn forces used air attack craft to bomb and strafe the off-duty garrison, then dropped several thousand armed paratroopers. The surprise attack killed or wounded over a thousand New York soldiers, relaxing after their Thanksgiving duties, before they were able to mobilize their defense. The Penn forces were – utterly – defeated. Some hundred prisoners were taken for questioning. The rest were killed in action.”