A Rage for Revenge

29 Family

I should have headed north. To San Francisco. I turned south.

I didn't know where the place was exactly-I wasn't even sure why I was going there-but it was someplace to go and I knew I could find it.

Highway 101 was a long straightaway of tall trees and burned out buildings. The people of San Francisco had fled south along this road, spreading the dreadful plagues they were fleeing. Every burned-out building or abandoned automobile was a monument to someone's death.

The highway was empty now.

The abandoned cars had been pulled off. Many of the burned buildings had been bulldozed flat. Some new greenery was beginning to creep into the war zone, but still the highway seemed carved down the center of a bleak scar of rubble.

All the roads in America were like this.

There had been no escape from the dying, but people had fled anyway. The very act of fleeing had only hastened the spread. The National Science Center at Denver-had still not identified all of the different diseases. Not all of them had attacked human beings. Animals and plant species had suffered too.

At San Jose, I turned west across the mountains. There had been fires here. There were blackened tree stumps dotting the hillsides. The new growth would take a long time to cover the wounds.

I noticed that some of the new growth was pink. Not a good sign.

The Chtorran plants were more aggressive than Earth ones. If the native plants were already established, that was enough advantage for them to survive; but given an area where they had to compete on equal terms, the Chtorran plants would take hold every time. Burning out the Chtorran growth wouldn't work. It would just come back over and over. That was another problem that would have to be addressed.

I came out on the coast road. The Pacific Ocean was bright with reflected sun. The highway looped across green fields and along the shore. I stopped the Jeep and stood up to look over the windshield. The wind came stiff and cold across the grass, carrying the smell of raw salt air. High above, a seagull wheeled and hawked across the sky, spreading seagull screams as it went. I could smell seaweed on the beach.

For a moment, I almost forgot there was a war. For a moment, I almost forgot the confusion in my head. Jason. . .

He wasn't going to give up.

He'd keep his word. I could depend on that. He'd find me and he'd kill me.

If he was still alive.

Maybe I'd gotten him first. And maybe not. There was no way to know.

No.

I had to put him behind me. Logically -I had to be logical about this-there was no way for him to find me. Logically, I wasn't worth the trouble.

Forget him. It's over.

Go somewhere quiet and figure out what to do next.

I released the brake and let the Jeep ease forward. South.

A few kilometers down the road there was a sign that read, "New Peninsula Turnoff. Next Right." I took it.

Twenty-three years ago, a development company had sunk five gigantic turbines into the ocean current off the coast of California. They had been supplying most of Santa Cruz's power ever since. But during the off-use hours of midnight to six A.M., their power was diverted into an underwater shoal of metal and junk. The reaction of electricity and seawater produced an accretion around the metal: a growth like coral, but with the strength of concrete.

Over a period of years, an entire peninsula was grown. Tons of landfill were deposited on the concrete shoal. Solid waste from all over the state was transported to the site. A landscape had been constructed along the length of it, and a private little vacation village had been constructed at the tip.

The village had been built to be a model of technology. It had free electricity from the ocean turbines. That power was also used to distill fresh water. The extra heat was used to heat every building on the peninsula and provide hot water as well. There was an underground-underwater network of service tubes and access bays.

I knew all this from the articles I'd read in the Sunday Features. I came around a curve and I could see it in the distance. It was almost an island. A mountain had been constructed where the peninsula touched the shore.

The peninsula was a southward-pointing loop. A long concrete bridge curved around a huge recreation lagoon and touched the peninsula on the westward side. This was the only access to the village.

As I turned onto the bridge, I realized just how effectively this whole thing had been designed. I wondered if the Disney people had been involved. For just a moment, I had the impression that I was driving straight into the ocean, then the bridge began to curve and I was coming across the water toward a glimmering seaside fantasy. The village shone in the midday sun. There were domes and towers and clustered places of arches and arcades, all flashing shades of pink and gold and white. The effect was dazzling. I knew how it had been done; they were made of a kind of foamed glass concrete; it hardened to a shiny stucco-like surface with the albedo of tile; even if you could chip it, all that you would do would be to reveal more of the same shimmering surface, but even knowing how the effect was done did not diminish its magic.

The drawbridge was down and I rolled across it slowly.

The gateway to the village was a simple arch; I suspected that it was also a frame for security devices, but it was so elegantly designed it looked more like a friendly welcome.

I rolled past wide lawns. Three robot gardeners were trimming hedges. Two more were trimming the grass with laser-mowers. You could land airplanes on this field.

Directly ahead of me was a forest, and all the plants were green joyously, verdantly green. There were tall palm trees with green fronds waving in the air, gnarly Monterey pines curling like dragon claws, and sparkling yellow aspen with leaves glittering like golden petals in the bright noonday sun. Slender eucalyptus trees stretched against the crisp blue sky. There were graceful elms and thick-trunked oaks and sheltering willows lining the streets. Every building seemed to be nestled within a garden or a pool or a shady nook. Huge ferns cascaded over walls. There wasn't a red or pink plant in sight. The Chtorran infestation hadn't touched here yet. If you had the power, you could do anything.

I felt as if I'd found Paradise, a tiny piece of it at least. Even the air smelled green.

Except-the streets were deserted. It couldn't be Paradise without people. But I didn't see any other vehicles. I eased the Jeep forward.

The roadway turned. It formed a loop around the entire peninsula. The center of the loop was a lush green wilderness, a kilometer wide and seven kilometers long: the village had been constructed around, and probably under as well, a deep sheltering park. A shallow stream fed down from the mountains, filling the park with a network of freshwater ponds. Here and there, I could see ornate Japanese bridges arching high over the brook. Each area of the park seemed to have its own separate personality. Here was a wide field, there a sheltered copse, here a rocky outcrop. It beckoned the onlooker; it invited you to explore.

The south end of the loop led past what had once been a mall of restaurants and theatres and community buildings. As it turned back north, these gave way to hotels, condominiums, and apartments, two or three blocks of them. These gave way to clustered houses and finally estates.

The north end of the loop paused at the base of the man-made mountain, the hiking ridge, and then turned south again, through another residential district to a hospital, a courthouse, and a sheriff's office. Here the road turned back out onto the bridge. Traffic here was intended to be all one way. It took less than ten minutes to circle the entire village.

Abruptly, a gaggle of naked screaming children burst out of the bushes ahead of me; they were charging happily across the street. I stood on the brakes and brought the Jeep to a screeching halt. Some of the children stopped and stared. Others darted around the vehicle and kept going.

Three teenage girls in dripping wet bathing suits came out of the park after the children. They looked like they were trying to herd them, and not doing a very good job of it.

A fourth girl, dressed in blue jeans and carrying a bullhorn, followed after. She started calling the children back to her. "All right, now: form a circle. Everybody. Come on, quickly now."

She had dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin. She glanced up once and saw me watching them. An expression of annoyance flickered across her face, then she turned back to her job. "All right, I don't think you're being noisy enough, kids! Let's see how much noise you can make!"

The children were delighted at the opportunity. They started screaming and hollering.

"Oh, boo-I can hardly hear you. I thought you said you were going to make some noise!"

The children laughed and screamed even louder. They jumped up and down and waved their arms in the air and hooted and whooped like Indians. I figured there were at least forty of them. They were all sizes, all ages, all colors. Less than half of them were white. I'd heard the plagues were hardest on Caucasian and Asian people.

"Come on, kids! Let's make some real noise now! B-Jay can't hear you yet! Let it go! Let's hear some real screaming! I can still hear myself think! Come on, let's make the biggest noise in the whole world!" The girl was good.

For a moment, I thought of Delandro and his Revelations. This looked almost the same. She was coaching those bobbing little bodies into a frenzy. The children screamed like geese and steam whistles. They whooped and hollered until they collapsed laughing to the grass.

The circle broke then and they all ran over and fell on top of the girls, tumbling into a big happy heap of hugs and giggles.

"All right-let's go now!" The girl handed her bullhorn over to one of the other teenagers, who began herding the children down toward the community center.

The girl in the jeans turned toward me now. Her expression turned as dark as her skin.

"All right," she said, walking up to the Jeep. "Who the hell are you? And how did you get onto the peninsula? Did you get an eyeful? Did you see everything you wanted to?"

"I drove across the bridge." I pointed back over my shoulder.

"The bridge was down?"

"Yeah."

"Dammit! I'm going to kill that Danny! Well, listen you, you turn that Jeep around right now and head on back the way you came. "

"Is this place called Family?"

"Yes, and you're on private property."

"I'm looking for Juanita Wise," I said. I had to give the twerp credit. He'd married her anyway.

"She's not here. Who are you?"

"I'm Lieutenant James Edward McCarthy of the United States Army. And this country is still under military jurisdiction. So I'll ask some questions now. Who are you?"

I had to give her credit. She didn't back down. She said, "They call me Little Ivy."

"When will Mrs. Wise be back?"

"She's not coming back. What do you want with her?"

"Do you know where she went?"

"She's dead."

Suddenly the sun was awfully bright. And I felt dizzy. This day wasn't real. I could feel my gut tightening. "Are you sure?"

"I assisted with the autopsy." Her tone was matter of fact.

"Her name used to be McCarthy-?"

"I don't know. I guess so. Listen, if you're still looking for her son, we already told you, he was never here."

"I am her son."

"Huh? Oh, my God-" She looked as if I'd hit her with a shovel. Her face went gray. "I-I'm sorry."

I couldn't hear her. "What did she die of?"

"A millipede bit her. On the mainland. We don't have any on the peninsula."

I felt a cold chill in my belly. "Was it the blood thing, where all the red cells just explode?"

She shook her head. "No, nothing that fancy. A staph infection."

"Staphlococcus? Staph? But that's-stupid!"

Little Ivy looked flustered and embarrassed. "That's what Birdie said-she's our doctor. But we don't always have all the medicines we need. Uh, listen, Lieutenant. I'm awfully sorry. About the way I treated you. I didn't know. We used to get a lot of strangers coming in here and . . ."

"Spare me your excuses." I held up a hand. I was trying to think. I couldn't think. There was a terrible pounding in my head. She couldn't be dead. That was stupid. Not like this. People don't die like this any more.

But even as I tried to tell myself it wasn't true, I knew it was. But I couldn't cry. I wouldn't cry.

There were tears rolling down my cheeks, but it wasn't me. I wasn't there. I wasn't crying. Not me. Not yet.