Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalipse

For a second I was too stunned to move, watching the way the shock wave raced inward in a spherical shell and how the surface of the cloud roiled and churned inside it. Then, remembering where we were, I shouted, "Christ!" and yanked the emergency descent handle under the dashboard. It was the first time I’d ever done that in a car; the air bags blossoming out of the doors and roof and dash slammed me back in the seat and completely blocked my view for ten or fifteen terrifying seconds while the automatic landing sequence took over and dropped us like a rock. We bobbed once, hard, like a cork smacking into water, then settled with a crunch on the ground. The air bags sucked back inside their cubbyholes and I fell forward against the dash. We were listing at about a thirty-degree angle toward the front.

Jody had caught herself with her hands before she fell forward. She looked out the window and said, "We’re sitting on a sagebrush."

I looked out my side. Sure enough, a gnarled, knobby little bush was holding the rear end of the car in the air. Not a good position to be in when the shock wave rolled over us. I started the motor and lifted the joystick to raise us off it, and with a sound like ice cubes in a blender the car chopped the bush to shreds, blowing blue-gray bits of foliage everywhere and sending an eye-watering burst of sage smell in through the vents. We lifted up, though, and the wind shoved us forward a few meters before I could set us back down again. We sat there watching the cloud rise and waited for the blast to reach us.

And waited, and waited. The wind shifted a little, then shifted back, and after a while we realized we weren’t going to feel anything more this far away so I cautiously took us up a few meters and started flying southeast again. The car had picked up a bad vibration from the sagebrush, but it still flew.

The mushroom cloud blew eastward in front of us as we approached, the wind at different altitudes slowly tearing it apart. We were moving faster than the wind, though, and as we approached it we realized the bomb couldn’t have gone off very far out of Cheyenne.

Jody looked at me with a worried expression. "I thought Gwen said he’d lob one into Nebraska."

I was starting to worry, too. "Maybe it went off in the launch tube."

"We’d better call and see if he’s okay."

I didn’t want to blow our chances of surprising him, but if he was hurt I supposed we should know it. "Okay," I said, and Jody dialled his number.

When it rang half a dozen times without an answer I began worrying in earnest, but then the phone display flickered on and his face appeared before us. "Dave here," he said.

Jody put on a stern expression. "God called, and He told me to tell you to knock it off."

For just a moment, I could see hope blossom in Dave’s face. Then he scowled and said, "Very funny. Did you call just to harass me or do you have something important to say?"

"We called to see if you were okay. That blast looked like it was pretty close to town."

"It was in town," said Dave."At the Air Force base, anyway, which is pretty much the same thing. None of the rockets were in shape to fly, so I just blew one of the missiles in place."

"Where were you?" I asked.

Dave laughed. "Colorado Springs. NORAD control. I’ve got a half mile of mountain over my head right now, in case you were thinking of trying to stop me."

In a teasing voice, Jody said, "Aren’t you afraid God will miss you again?"

Dave shook his head. "You wouldn’t believe the spy network they’ve got here. I’ve got satellite surveillance all over the world. If He shows up I’ll know it, and I’ll set off another one closer to home. He’ll know I’m here."

And so did we, now. I angled the car straight south.

"Have you ever considered how God might feel about nuclear bombs?" Jody asked him. "Destroying so much of His handiwork all at once might make Him mad."

"It’s a risk I’m willing to take," Dave said.

"But you’re taking it for all of us, and I’m not willing."

"Not now," Dave said, "but you’ll thank me when I succeed."

"And what if you don’t? None of us are going to thank you for blowing a bunch of fallout into the air. We’re going to have to live here, Dave. You too, probably."

He laughed. "That’s what the environmentalists thought. So they quit cutting the forests and burning fossil fuels, and all for what? The environmentalists are gone and the forests and the fossil fuels are still here. It was a complete waste."

I could hardly believe my ears. "You really believe that?"

"I really do."

"Then you’re a lot worse off than I thought."

His eyes narrowed. "Ah, why am I even talking to you?" He reached forward, and his image flicked out.

Jody looked over at me. "I don’t think subduing him’s going to be easy. If he’s in the NORAD command centre, then I don’t know if we’ll even be able to get to him."

"We’ll figure out something when we get there," I said. I was trying to convince myself as well as her. I didn’t have any idea what we’d do, but what else could we do but try?

#