Helene turned a corner toward Storeroom Number Two—what had been the Women’s Locker Room—intent on the screen of her inventory tablet. Only a sudden, stifled giggle made her look up. Lack of power kept the hallway in semi-darkness, but enough daylight slanted in from the gym to see a figure she knew well.
And another she didn’t.
“Scott,” she said, breathing quickly. “What are you …?”
Scott stepped quickly—rather too quickly, Helene thought—away from the girl he was with, and closed the door to the storeroom with a click, dropping a key in his pocket. Although Helene was in charge of inventory, Principal Jeffers gave Scott a key, too. As for her boyfriend’s companion – she recognized Ellen Cartwright, one of the Emergency Committee’s “errand girls” hanging back in the shadows—here. Alone. Together.
“What are you … you two doing?”
Ellen was a junior, one of the varsity cheerleaders. Flighty. Pretty. All of the errand girls were pretty—a fact Helene tried not to think about.
“What’s that?” Helene pointed to a pair of boxes on the floor.
“We’re just getting some things for the faculty lounge,” Scott said nonchalantly, brushing his sleeve over his lips. Did he just wipe his mouth?
Helene looked at Ellen, but the girl wouldn’t return her stare. After an awkward moment, Ellen picked up one of the boxes and walked away with a curt, “I’ll take these to the lounge. Later, Scott.”
Did she have a smirk on her face as she passed? In the low light it was hard to tell. No … don’t be paranoid.
With Ellen gone, Helene said, “You should keep me in the loop when you take stuff. I know you have a key, but we all agreed that nothing comes in or out without me logging it.” She waved her tablet. “It’s my job to track things. What did you take?”
“Notepads and snacks,” he said, bending to pick up the remaining box.
“You can’t just take food out of here!” Helene felt heat in her voice. “You know every calorie is precious right now.”
Scott shrugged. “The Emergency Council makes a lot of important decisions, Helene, often meeting through mealtimes. We need to eat. We can’t have our leaders going hungry, right?”
“But you can’t just—”
“Look,” Scott snapped. “If you have a problem, take it up with Jeffers.” He started to walk away.
“Wait,” she said, her tone softening a little. They had been together—been lovers—for a while now. She knew him well, knew what made him tense.
Scott has responsibilities, a lot of weight on his shoulders. I shouldn’t be so quick to judge.
“What?”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? Just tell me what you took so I can mark it down.”
“I’ve got one box of the legal pads and ten pens, and Ell took some bags of potato chips that had been in the vending machine in the rec room under the wrecked church.”
Helene found the items in on her database and checked them off, making a note: Faculty Lounge, per Scott.
Something still bothered her, though. And maybe because she was tired and hungry like everyone else, this time she didn’t hold back.
“You know you just called her Ell.”
“What?” Scott said, annoyed.
“You called her Ell. Not Ellen.”
“So?”
Helene took a deep breath. “Do you like her, Scott? Are you two …?”
Scott laughed and turned away. As he walked down the hall, he called over his shoulder. “Let me know when you’ve regained your senses, okay, Helene? I’m under a lot of pressure and I really don’t need you second guessing me.” Then stopped in his tracks. After a pause, Scott turned and looked back at her with a smile. “Oh stop worrying, babe. You are my queen. Always. I’ll see you after dinner tonight!”
Then he was gone.
Helene fished the key from her pocket and shoved it into the lock, twisting it so hard it almost snapped off in her hand.
✽✽✽
Mark watched as a team came by with shopping carts, pulled by donkeys, delivering supper. Dished from a big kitchen tureen into re-used bowls, the meal consisted of what might have been lasagnas and enchiladas from the Food King’s freezer section, stirred into a soup with … Gatorade it seemed, water being too precious. Bowls of the goulash were strictly rationed. A teacher whose name Mark didn’t know monitored with her tablet to verify each recipient’s facial ID. No double dipping, this time. Well, we’re learning.
The bowls and utensils—licked clean—were dropped into a tub filled with … well … it smelled and looked like malt liquor, good enough as a disinfectant for the next group to be served, but one more ‘solution’ that wouldn’t work for more than a few days. Mark couldn’t help following the food servers with his eyes, inhaling the aromas they left behind, wishing there’d been more.
Dusk approached. Lookouts checked the seals around their watchtower windows—salvaged from wrecked homes—making sure they’d be bat-proof. Soon, the food-folks retreated indoors, along with a vast majority of other humans, straggling in from various work details, some of them leaning against each other, in exhaustion. Almost an hour before full dark, everyone still beyond the school walls now carried one of the new umbrellas, made of plastic-coated cardboard from the grocery, mostly boxes that used to hold frozen pizzas, sewn or taped together today by busy teams in several classrooms. Never before in his life had Mark yearned to lick an umbrella …
He didn’t even mention forming a search party—Mark knew the request would be refused. An inner voice—it sounded like Dad—reminded: if something terrible had struck down the Donner Group, it would do no good to go charging blindly into darkness. And yet he stood there, along with half a dozen others at the top of the new trail, blocking any attempt to close the gate.
Barry Tang arrived, partly to hold vigil for Alex, of course. But also to test a BTD—a bat-thing detector—concocted from salvaged security cams, motion sensors and microphones, all of them feeding into the Siri program on somebody’s spare phone. “If they come again, we can gather data along a bunch of spectra. Figure out what gives the best early warning,” he explained to two nervous guards who would monitor the contraption, as they prepared to seal themselves into their rickety shack.
Barry looked tired too, even though his day had been spent indoors with a team of would-be hackers, trying to break every usage block that protective officials had programmed into Bio Lab equipment at Twenty-Nine Palms High. Ms. O’Brien helped with suggested passwords—she had once dated a fellow at the Board of Education’s Safety Office.
“That got us into the gene sequencer,” Barry reported, as darkness fell and everyone at the edge of the Rock opened their umbrellas, gathering close together. They also had two recharged fire extinguishers.
“We’re still locked out of the organic-chem synthesis machines, which we’ll need if the food here has missing nutrients. But I think we’ll get that cracked too. Remember the veterinarian who ran the small animal clinic?”
“Next to the Szechuan restaurant across the street? Doc Hutnicki, right?”
“Yeah, well, she had to fight a fire there all by herself after the Snatch and got kinda burned. Lost some of the critters, too. But she seems recovered enough to help with the diagnostic machines. It’ll help us eliminate a lot of bad food candidates.”
That assumes we can eat anything, at all, Mark pondered, reminding himself that Na-Bistaka’s people weren’t likely to drag more than a thousand fecund young humans across the galaxy just to starve them. Through a muzzy haze of fatigue, he nodded appreciatively at Barry.
“You’ve done fantastic stuff, for just one and a half days. I’m really proud of you,” he told his friend, and felt a little daunted by how his praise affected the boy, making his chest swell. Mark felt compelled to add: “Your work is terribly important … Barack.”
When he first met Barry, just after moving to Twenty-Nine Palms, the gangly youth had still been asking people to use his given name, till he gave up a lost cause. Now, with a grin, he shrugged.
“I’m Barry.”
“Whatever you say. You the man.”
“No, you.”
“No, you.”
“No—”
“You both are men, as far as I’m concerned,” said a feminine voice, approaching from behind.
Her dark hair backlit by the school’s intense porchlight, Helene Shockley approached through the lowering dusk. Though surprised, Mark felt none of his familiar, awkward rush, upon seeing her. In its place, he found instead a strange calm, no doubt numbness from fatigue … plus some prickly defensiveness.
“We’re keeping the gate open,” he told her, firmly.
“I’d expect no less.” Helene nodded, peering beyond him toward the forest. “You think I came to order it closed?”
“Well then, what does Scott want?”
A sigh—partly her own weariness, he could tell.
“I’m not Scott Tepper’s messenger. Nor his secretary. Nor … I’m just head of inventory.”
“But … I thought …”
“Nobody cares what you thought!” She snapped. And with some shock Mark realized that her words meant the very opposite. “I came out to bring you water. Here.”
Helene handed Barry and Mark a pair of canteens with Drannen Hardware sales tags still hanging from the spouts. Now her voice was tense. “Ration it out carefully. Oh, and here are better umbrellas.”
These were the real thing. Earth made, not taped together grocery boxes. Barry eagerly tested all six of them, opening and closing each one before passing it on to the others. Helene turned to go, but Mark plucked her sleeve.
“Sorry,” he said. The same tiredness that protected him from stumbling nervously in her presence also left him unable to put a sentence together. “You … were saying?”
Helene looked at Mark, then away. And if he had any energy left, it all would have evaporated from shock. She’s nervous … with me?
“I was saying …”
“About Scott.”
Helene shook her head. “Never mind. Scott’s doing great work. Important work. Don’t you think?”
Mark spoke carefully. “He’s a natural-born leader and decisive as all … heck, at a time when we can’t afford to waste … time. I sincerely believe Principal Jeffers needs Scott and might be lost, without him.”
A look of relief washed Helene’s face, as if a nagging doubt were resolved. “Yeah, I think so too.”
What did I just do? Mark berated himself. You might have had an opening to—
“There!”
A shrill shout came from Leo, whose turn it was with the binoculars. “I just thought I saw …”
“Saw what?” Barry asked, moving alongside, eagerly.
“Light in the forest!”
Mark spared just the barest instant to be disappointed by the interruption. Hold that thought, he silently beseeched Helene, then swiveled, following the boy’s outstretched arm and pointing finger. “Where?”
He peered in the direction indicated, cursing the tricks that twilight played on the eye. But … yes … after a count of eight … there was a glimmer.
“Torch!” Mark hissed. Barry aimed his big Maglight, turning it on and off, three times, highlighting several trees that broke the beam into narrow fingers.
“Again,” Helene urged.
This time, the third flash triggered a faint noise from deep within the trees. It sounded human! Maybe a cry of joy. Unless it was some native animal—there were so many of them, all the time making mysterious rackets.
“Keep it up,” Mark asked and swiveled to pound on the guard shack. “You guys get out here! We need you. Now!”
Accompanied by Helene and three other students, he started down the new ramp, fumbling at his own, smaller lantern. “Leo, please run to the school. Get Ms. O’Brien and a cart. Someone may be injured!”
At the rubble platform they turned left and things got narrow. Rough. The Edge Trail was still a jumble of ruts and rocks, a real hazard if you didn’t watch your step. Mark held out his arm to steady Helene at one point, then leaned hard on her, when his own foot caught on a jagged stone. All the way, he just wanted to run!
“Close those umbrellas!” he shouted, unable to see ahead past the damn things. A few bat bites weren’t likely to kill you, the way a broken neck could. But even without the obstruction, he was having trouble seeing.
At bottom, they faced the barest trail between fallen trees and mounds of brush left by today’s clearing crew. It was all far more creepy and ominous in the gathering gloom, with a small moon and several bright stars twinkling, as if in amusement as Mark and the others stumbled toward faint sounds. Could it be animals? There were noisy creatures in this jungle … And rumor told that some could glow in the dark.
But no, they were people! Getting louder as their own hopes lifted.
“Over here!” He tried to shout, but it came out as a pathetic croak. Helene’s call was better. Clearer, anyway.
“This way! Come this way!” Heck, anyone would follow that voice.
They reached the clearing’s edge as a light, no two, then a third appeared, glimmering, diffracting through trees and vines. Then at least three were alive! He tried to think positively.
“We’re coming!” A voice called. Dave McCarty, he realized. “We have injured!”
Mark knew what Dad would say. He could imagine his father’s voice. “You've done fine, son. Only now hold fast. Here, at the forest edge is where you belong. It will do no good to go charging into—”
Mark charged into the forest.
Tripped on a root.
Ran into a tangle of vines.
Writhed free … jerked around … tripped again … collided with a trunk …
… and fell into blackness.
✽✽✽
The second day of the Abduction wasn’t quite over when Mark briefly regained consciousness. Just before midnight, they later told him. Something softly damp was stroking his cheek and neck. He roused enough to make out voices. Two of them, female.
“Well of course I say go for it. I doubt he’ll say no.”
“Well, if you say so. Though I’m still unsure …”
“Hmph. Well, it’s not up to me. But nice of you to think so. As for the other matter, no, I’m not interested in joining the Inventory and Supplies Committee. There’s more than enough work to be done out there.”
“Out there … you mean in the forest? Even after today’s near disaster? Three injured and one of them severely? If you had still been out there an hour later, and if the bats returned—”
“Well, we weren’t, and they didn’t—so far. Thanks to you all who came to help us. And that ramp, so we didn’t have to use ropes. How in the world did you all get that built in a day?”
“Ask him, when he wakes. Everyone worked hard, but he was a maniac.”
“Hm, maniac. Yeah, that’s Bam. Good thing he’s out, right now.”
Alex, he thought, though muzzy and half unconscious. She’s alive. Safe. Talking to Helene.
Probably for the first time, ever.
Well, adventure changes people.
He felt a tight knot of worry let go.
Replaced by curiosity. The Donner group, what had they found? And how many were injured? How badly?
But there was no strength to speak, or even open his eyes. The soft dampness moved to his hands. Someone was washing them with a moist cloth. Wasting precious water.
“Everyone’s excited about the spring you found, in the hills,” Helene said, as if reading Mark’s thought. “If it’s as big as they say.”
“It’s more like a spring fed lake, and the feed-flow should be sufficient for us all!” Alex murmured. “Only that presents a real problem, transporting it. On our way back, taking turns hauling Lupe and Nathan and Jorge, we talked about how we could carry enough water to feed over a thousand people, let alone crops n’ such.
“We concluded that most everyone would have to pack up, abandon the school and move into the hills.”
“Yes, well, maybe that can be avoided, if the crazy notion that Nick … Hammer is it?”
“Hammar, and his brother, Greg. Yeah. Their idea is weird, but it could turn out also to be our salvation. We’re pretty sure the lake is uphill from here. Next time we’ll take a phone with a good altimeter app. And Jane Shevtsov’s surveying transit. Only—”
“Only what?”
“Only who will listen to the Hammar boys? Or Froggi? Or Dave?”
“They’ll listen to Gracie Donner. She’s the hero of the hour!”
“Hm. Maybe. But what are Scott and Colin saying about it?”
Mark didn’t have to look, in order to hear Helene’s frown.
“They don’t want to let any more expeditions out there. With those nasty critters who attacked you—”
That almost yanked Mark fully awake. Only, the party did make it home, safe. And now someone was using another cloth on his forehead. And exhaustion tugged him back down.
All worry is relative, Dad’s voice assured. Let go now. The women approve and think you had a good day. So, it was a good day. Let go.
And he let go, drifting off, even as Helene said:
“Gracie’s a hero, sure. And that’ll get the idea heard. But trust me, we’ll need more than that, to push through any plan past Scott. One hero isn’t enough.”
After a pause, she continued. “Confidentially, in a situation like this … we’re going to need more than one.”
Dimly, Mark wondered what she meant. But exhaustion overwhelmed even curiosity, quenching it like a fading ember as he plummeted back to sleep, ending his second day on a new world.