TORMENT (10 page)

For a fraction of a moment she wondered if killing Liz and herself was the right thing to do. It would be merciful. But grossly wrong. The notion soured her stomach, helped along by the zero gravity. She felt herself losing control, the sinews that held her emotions in check were stretched tight and breaking one at a time.

Ping.

Ping.

Ping.

Don’t lose your fucking mind!
she
thought at herself.
Liz deserves to live and you’re going to make damn sure her life is the best it can be, given the circumstances.

She focused on moving instead of the hopelessly horrible life that awaited Liz. The stark white octagonal hallway stretched on for another ten feet before coming to a three way intersection, each direction blocked by a steel hatch. It was wide enough for two people to pass without collision, or float side-by-side. She passed under a recessed light and paused a few feet back from Austin, who opened the hatch leading left.

“In here,” he said.

Mia slid into the room behind Austin and found herself in a digital wonderland. The room held two comfortable looking chairs, bolted to the floor, covered in straps. Surrounding the chairs was an array of computer monitors, glowing buttons, gauges and a long window that provided a stunning and horrific view of the molten Earth below. Austin took a seat and motioned her to take the other. She sat down next to him, but floated up a little.

“Use the Velcro straps,” Austin said. “They’ll hold you down.”

Mia took a pair of straps and pulled them tight over her thighs. She did the same around her waist. Strapped down and comfortable, Mia looked over at Austin. He sat silently, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. After nearly a minute, the silence and view of Earth began to drive her mad. “What is this place?”

“Command center,” Austin said. He’d apparently been waiting for her to speak. “All the systems on board are controlled from here. Every room can be monitored, every hatch sealed, every light turned off and on. We can also see the status of Earth. We’ll know when it’s safe to return.”

“Return?”
Mia asked. “How will we ever return?”

“The computer monitors Earth’s survivability, testing for radiation, breathable atmosphere, yadda, yadda, yadda. When it determines that it’s safe to return, it sounds a warning and ten minutes later we descend back to the surface in a free fall followed by parachutes. It’ll even put us back on U.S. soil.”

Mia’s eyebrows rose. “Thanks for the detailed description, but that’s not what I meant.”

Austin looked at her. “What did you mean?”

“I mean, look at it,” Mia said, her voice raising an octave. She thrust an open palm toward the view of Earth below, still churning with destructive swirling clouds and stabs of luminous orange. “We destroyed the planet. There’s no going back.”

Austin looked at the view and nodded. “Yeah...it looks like we’re screwed.” He looked at her and smiled. “But don’t tell anyone else that.”

Mia shook her head and smirked. She couldn’t believe humor still existed, but as her smile grew, so did Austin’s. He flipped his hand like he was opening a notebook and began writing in it with an imaginary pen. “Note to self. Mia Durante.
Finds global annihilation humorous.
Subject requires further observation.”

Austin closed the imaginary notepad and looked back at her like he’d done and said nothing. In that moment she learned two things: 1. Austin was okay. 2. He had a weird sense of humor.

“So,” she said. “Why am I here and not one of your Secret Service guys?
Or the president for that matter?”

Austin leaned back in his chair and tapped out a steady beat with his fingers on the armrests as he thought. He looked at her and noticed her eyes on his fingers. “I play the drums.” He turned his head toward the button covered ceiling. “Pretty soon everyone on board is going to realize that the United States no longer exists. I’m pretty sure this has already dawned on Collins. He can’t be the president of something that is not there. My team will realize this as well and figure out they no longer need to protect the man. Their motivation has been removed.”

Mia nodded. She hadn’t thought this far ahead yet, but it all made sense. The destruction of the United States made them all equals. The president, the priest, the war hero, the Secret Service, the reporter, the aide and the little girl—all on even ground. She frowned. Julia Child couldn’t come up with a better recipe for chaos. “So, let me ask again. Why am I here?”

“Other than a pretty face to distract me from the view?”

Mia raised a no-nonsense eyebrow, which made him smile.

“I’ve been watching the group.” Austin flipped a series of switches. A line of screens arranged beneath the long window. Several views of the large, lounge chair-filled room appeared. Each screen focused on an individual or pair. “You want the quick and honest answer?”

Mia nodded, looking at each screen.

“You’re the only one not cracking up.” Austin pointed at the shot of Collins, still staring out the portal. “He hasn’t moved, not even a twitch of the finger. He’ll probably come back to us, but for now he’s in LaLa Land and like I said, he’s lost whatever sway he had over people now that his position no longer exists.”

He pointed to the next screen showing the still sick Secret Service man and the woman tending to him. “White is obviously physically ill, but I’m hoping he’ll come around. Vanderwarf seems okay, but was going to be transferred next week because she’s got a thing for Danny-boy there. She’s going to be preoccupied with him until he’s not launching puke and then she’ll have to deal with the loss of her parents, five brothers, two sisters, her son and...
her
husband. White has resisted her advances, but she’s a looker and an affair was bound to happen. Of course, that’s not an issue now, is it?”

The next screen showed Garbarino, still reassembling his handgun. “Garbarino has me worried. He’s the quiet type. Never says much. But he’s got a temper. Removing your sidearm, let alone disassembling it and reassembling it in view of the public
is
a huge breach of protocol. He’s no longer thinking about right and wrong. I guarantee you he’s already figured out that the president and me are no longer his bosses. And he’s distracting himself from dealing with what happened. Not a good thing.”

He moved on to the next screen showing Chang talking with Elizabeth. “Frankly, Chang has surprised me. She cried for a long time, which is perfectly rational, then pulled
herself
together. She’ll be helpful, but she’s young and emotional. Elizabeth...” He looked at Mia. “I don’t need to explain her. Cute kid, though.”

Mia smiled.

“And that brings us to the brothers grim. And I mean grim as in depressing, not the fairy tales, though the line these two are spinning is just as morbid as the original stories.” Collins flicked another button, activating a directional microphone attached to the hidden camera. Paul’s and Mark’s whispered voices filled the room.

“I don’t know,” said Paul.

“I’m telling you... Did you see the clouds down there?” Mark’s hushed words were hard to make out. The next two sentences were a mix of slurred syllables.

“Then how come we’re still here?” Paul
asked,
a little anger in his voice.

Mark shrugged and spoke, but his words were once again unintelligible. What they could see was the Bible in the priest’s hand. He smacked it against his brother’s chest every once in a while for emphasis.

Paul rubbed the back of his neck.
“Maybe.”

Austin turned the sound off.

“I see what you mean,” Mia said.

“I’ve only caught bits and pieces of the load the priest is selling, but it’s no good. We need to keep paranoid religious talk to a minimum. Nothing freaks people out faster.” Austin turned back to the view of Paul and Mark and snorted. Mark was turning through the pages of the small Bible. “Wouldn’t you know it? The only print book in the world to survive just had to be the Bible.”

Mia frowned hard.

“What?” Austin asked.

“That’s just sad, I guess. All the books on Earth are gone.”

“That’s sadder than all the people on Earth being gone?”

“No, just different.
Books represent hundreds, sometimes thousands of years of accumulated history. Everything mankind has ever discovered or created was recorded in a book. Now it’s all dust.”

“Not quite,” Austin said. “A digital copy of nearly every book ever printed is stored on board, along with data and information that’s never seen print. What do you read?”

“Run for your life action stuff.”

“Ugh, no thanks.
I’ve had enough of the real thing.”

“To each his own,”
she said. “So...is there a point to all this? You told me why they’re
not
here, but not why I
am
here. Why are you showing me this? Telling me about the others? Why are you telling me about this...ship, or escape pod—
”

“Earth Escape Pod.”

“Whatever. What’s the point?”

“Someone needs to be in charge.”

Mia’s forehead scrunched tight. What the hell? “We have a president.”

“Who’s no longer a president of
anything.
”

“We have you.”

“People tend not to trust gun-toting ex-Secret Service men.” Austin opened his coat, revealing his sidearm. “It implies they don’t have a choice.”

“Then lose the gun,” Mia said.

“Not a chance.”

“Why?”

“Because there are three other people on board with guns, and I don’t know if they’re trustworthy yet. Like I said, Garbarino has me worried.”

Mia could see his line of thinking. She wasn’t cracking up.
Yet.
She didn’t carry a gun. She was pretty, strong and had no previous affiliation with any of them except— “Elizabeth.”

Austin nodded. “She makes you a mother figure. Mother figures are trustworthy. She also gives you the most motivation to come out of this in one piece. The rest of us are just fighting for our lives. You’re fighting for two.”

Mia sank into her chair. He was right. But she still wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t do a better job. He was dealing with the annihilation of the human race better than all of them. “What about you? Why aren’t you cracking up?”

Austin leaned his balding head back into the chair and closed his eyes. “When I was eight, my father and I were driving cross country. We’d just entered Arizona when this wall of sand came from the south and swept toward the north. To us, seeing it from a distance, it looked beautiful. My father wisely stopped on the side of the road while we watched the sandstorm pass. When we started back on the road again, we found a small town a few miles ahead. It’d been directly in the path of the storm. The first person we saw was an eight year old boy. He was missing an arm. His mother lay in the sand with a shingle buried in her forehead. We counted twelve dead that day. People missing limbs, heads, or otherwise impaled by debris. Cars were overturned.
Windows broken.
Shards of metal, glass and wood everywhere.
The sand was soaked with blood. It’s amazing anyone survived. That was my first experience with death. I’ve been to thirty-four funerals since, seven in 10
^th
grade alone. There wasn’t much left of my family when...” Austin motioned to the view of Earth. “...this happened. Death just seems to follow me around and I’ve been ready for it for a long time. It’s why I can take a job where getting shot for someone else is part of the deal. It’s also why I’m the wrong person to take the lead right now. I’m good at dealing with death and with preventing death, but I’m not so good at what needs to happen next.”