Stormworld (7 page)

CHAPTER 15

The Escape Capsule

Hearing a tremendous commotion outside his room, Abe yanked open the door and hurried into the corridor, carrying the silver-and-black .38 pistol that the crazed Director had given to him. He had heard these sounds before, and knew it was another attempt to get in.

Abe raced to the bottom of the staircase and looked up at the door, reinforced with heavy planking nailed from the inside. Would it hold this time? To his horror, he saw the thick barricade shake more than ever before, from repeated blows on the other side.

He became aware of people around him, including Benitar Jackson, who put a foot on the bottom stair and pointed another handgun up at the door. “They can’t get in!” he shouted, but he didn’t sound confident. His dark gaze darted around wildly. The man had the look of madness about him.

Abe scratched an itch on the back of his neck, felt a raw spot from a nervous habit he had developed in recent days. “I pray that you’re right, but prayers don’t seem to offer much protection anymore.”

Belinda joined the others, and down the corridor Abe saw Peggy standing in her own doorway, a rare moment when the doting mother wasn’t holding her baby or otherwise tending to it. “There must be something else we can do,” Belinda said. She looked distraught, and Abe knew why. Only an hour ago, Jimmy Hansik had been found dead in one of the storerooms, apparently poisoned by botulism in a can of salmon. Under the circumstances, with no real doctor in the seed repository, the answer might never be known. Rumors were swirling that Director Jackson had murdered him, and made it look like an accident.

Abe thought the truth was that some of the cans were outdated, and Jimmy took a chance and lost. Everyone had seen the cans and the expiration dates on them, even slight bulges in some cans that didn’t seem to harm anyone when they ate the contents. It had been going on for months, and Jimmy just got unlucky.

At Abe’s side, Benitar continued to stare up at the door as it shook, but continued to hold. Gradually the commotion outside died down, and the repository staff dispersed, murmuring uneasily among themselves.

* * *

Abe stood in the corridor with Peggy. “Are you getting any sleep?” he asked. Looking up at him, she saw that his face was a strange, anguished mask.

Shaking her head, she confessed, “Not much. I was just dozing off, trying to take a nap when I heard all the racket.” Behind her, she saw that Rosie had fallen into a more peaceful sleep, despite the nearby noise.

Peggy noticed Abe’s deep concern that showed in his voice and his unconscious mannerisms, especially in the nervous twitching around his jaw. He still held the .38 pistol, had it pointed at the floor.

“This is awkward for me to say,” Peggy began, “but I’m afraid I’m not producing enough milk for Rosie. Can you bring me some powdered milk?” She felt a deep, rising panic.

Grimly, Abe nodded.

Hearing Rosie stir, Peggy hurried to her and lifted her out of the makeshift crib. So light in her arms. She tucked the towel around Rosie’s tiny form, and saw the sickness from malnutrition in her blue eyes, a malady that seemed to be getting worse.

“Something else you should know, I guess …” Abe followed her into the room and set his gun on a table. From the expression on his face, she thought he was trying to figure out how to say something difficult. “We … Belinda and I … found Jimmy Hansik dead.” With measured words, Abe provided the gloomy details, and his theory of what happened. The can of salmon had been eight months past the expiration date.

“My God,” Peggy said as she sat on her bed, but she hardly had time to let the terrible news sink in. Looking down, she saw her baby’s lips moving, making sucking motions. Peggy lifted her own gray fleece pullover so that Rosie could nurse, then felt the heartbreakingly weak suction of the child at her nipple.

In an emotionless voice, Abe looked away from the exposed breast and said, “We put his body in the cooling chamber with the others.” It was as if he was making an announcement about the weather or the price of subzero parkas, as if he had no emotions left to grieve, or even be angry. But Peggy knew differently, and she couldn’t fault him. Everyone in the seed repository had been through a great deal, and Abe had proven his courage and goodness to her.

“How’s Belinda doing?” asked Peggy.

“Numb. I haven’t seen her cry yet, but I’m sure at some point she will.”

“I’ll check in on her when I can,” Peggy promised, though she didn’t know where she was going to find the necessary energy. She felt a surge of guilt for even thinking that.

Cradling Rosie as the baby nursed, Peggy studied this rare man who had become her friend, noticing he had deteriorated to a shadow since she had met him, with flecks of gray hair at the temples and his hair increasingly disheveled. His brown eyes were so washed out and drained that they frightened her.

Abe came over, sat heavily next to her on the bed, and put an arm around her shoulders. They just sat there, saying nothing, as Rosie suckled at her mother’s breast.

He was not there long when another uproar sounded outside, a tremendous crashing cacophony this time, and loud voices followed by gunfire. Startled, Peggy jerked back from her baby, but held onto her. Rosie screeched in protest, and continued to make sucking motions with her mouth.

Grabbing his handgun, Abe ran out into the corridor. The door slammed behind him.

* * *

Opening the door a little and peering down the corridor, Peggy saw Benitar Jackson and Abe Tojiko sheltered behind support columns, opening fire on the intruders as they streamed down the stairway with snow coming in all around them … men and women dressed in rags, their hair matted and straggly. Several bullets found their mark, and the wounded fell down the stairs, but others leaped around them, surging into the seed repository, followed by many more people, too numerous and hungry to care whether they exposed themselves to being shot or not. Some had their own guns, and fired back. Others carried knives and makeshift clubs.

Shot dead center in the chest, Benitar fell, shouting obscenities. He twitched, and went still.

“Food!” a man yelled in a deep voice. “They’ve got food down there!”

Terrified, Peggy saw Abe go into a crouching position, and then dash to another column. He glanced in her direction, a desperate, loving look.

A loud gunshot sounded. Abe crumpled to the floor, bleeding from the side of his head.

“No!” Peggy shouted.

With Rosie screaming and crying in her arms, Peggy saw the ragged intruders swarm into the corridor, and the snow blowing in from outside, around men and women looking like skeletons and yelling, “Food! Food!”

Unable to lock the door to her own room, Peggy saw the door to Benitar Jackson’s room had been left open, something she’d never seen before. She ran with Rosie down the corridor and dashed into the Director’s room, locking the door behind them. A small measure of security. Inside, she tried to soothe her crying baby, but Rosie was too agitated. She didn’t even want to nurse.

Looking around the large sleeping quarters, Peggy saw another door open, an elevator. Having heard Abe’s suspicions about what might be inside this room, she stepped inside. The door closed, and the elevator rose.

Stepping out into a chamber, she saw Benitar’s white, bullet-shaped “seed-evacuation” capsule, unmistakable though she had never seen it before. This confirmed Abe’s suspicions, but for some reason, perhaps because the Director didn’t want to be slowed down if he needed to get away quickly, he had left everything open.

* * *

Downstairs, some of the intruders ran into the cooling chamber where the bodies were stored and food was kept. Belinda had followed them inside, in an attempt to save the seeds.

Watching the frenzied, starving men and women haul out the edibles, she moved to block their way, but it was like trying to stop a tidal wave. They yanked out and hauled away drawers and storage containers of seeds, tubers, bulbs and roots, as well as bodies and anything else that looked like food. To her dismay she saw a flurry of dirty hands around her, pushing her away, and the flashing glass of the containers. She heard the smashing and the breaking, mixed with the anguished cries of the mob as they cursed and fought over the limited supplies.

“Get away from it, you …”

“Mine! Mine! Mine!”

* * *

Inside the rooftop chamber, Peggy hurried into the escape capsule with her baby and sealed the cockpit. In her arms, Rosie had grown quiet, so she must have fallen asleep. Their body weight on the seat activated multi-colored lights around them. Studying the control panel and a simplified instruction panel next to it, Peggy figured out which buttons to press and which toggles to pull. On a red button, the words “Engine” and “PRESS” flashed alternately. With her free hand she did so, and heard the smooth whine of the capsule’s engines, followed by the rough sound of the thick concrete rooftop hatch, as it opened to reveal a gray sky. Wind-blown snow flew in.

But the hatch stopped partway … jammed. Another damned electrical problem!

She pressed the button again, but nothing happened. Overhead, she saw people gathering around the outside of the rooftop hatch, looking down, with the whiteness of a storm swirling around them.

Helplessly, Peggy stared at a flashing blue button, the takeoff command, but she couldn’t press it yet. Panicking, she tried the roof control again. More than anything, she needed to save her baby. Somewhere in the back of her mind she recalled hearing that the capsule also contained an assortment of seeds and other planting necessities, but they were of secondary importance to her. She could hardly think that far ahead.

After an excruciating delay, the rooftop hatch opened with a grinding noise, but stopped again before going all the way. She hammered on the button, but the hatch had gone as far as it would go. Was it enough?

She took a last look at Rosie, then took a chance for both of them. And with her palm, smacked the flashing blue takeoff button.

* * *

In the corridors on the main floor of the seed bank, Belinda saw people running in all directions, scooping up everything they could get their hands on, with snow blasting in from a blizzard, mixing with the seeds that scattered and disappeared into the whiteness.

To her surprise, she thought she understood a little how Benitar Jackson had felt. Maybe he had not been so crazy, after all.

In the midst of the commotion a fire began, burning through wood interior partitions, fixtures, and furnishings. The mob surged back up the stairs and out into the freezing whiteness.

With the bins emptied and smashed on the floor, and the last of the seeds scattered like snowflakes by the wind, Belinda felt the warmth of the fire. It had been a long time since she felt so warm. Despite everything, she found it pleasant.

Sitting down on the snowy stairs, she closed her eyes, feeling the warmth. It was nice. So nice. If nothing else, at least she was warm.

* * *

Like locusts, people began dropping through the rooftop opening, onto the deck all around the white capsule and on top of it. With feral, inquisitive eyes, they peered through the windshield and the top of the cockpit at Peggy and the baby she clutched so tightly.

Why isn’t this thing taking off?
she wondered in desperation, as the engines continued to whine, accelerating and decelerating.
Does it sense that the hatch isn’t open far enough?

Looking into her baby’s face, Peggy saw the tiny blue eyes staring ahead, looking past her as if they were no longer capable of seeing anything. In an anguish unmatched in all of humanity, the young mother screamed. Then her precious child blinked, and cried. She was alive! The baby had her mother’s fighting spirit.

You’ll be all right, Rosie. Somehow we’re going to make it.

As she pounded on the takeoff button, Peggy Atkins only half heard the people clamoring and trying to open compartments on the hull of the tiny vessel, intending to remove everything it contained, the food, the seeds, the emergency gear. Given the opportunity, they would rip off the cockpit cover and tear the wires out.

The lights on the control panel went dark, and she stopped pounding on it. Clutching Rosie to her, Peggy tried to preserve the warmth of her child’s body, for as long as possible. She could do no more.

* * *