Zero day code, p.29
Zero Day Code, page 29
part #1 of End of Days Series
James stared at her. That hadn’t been where he was going at all.
“You were about to say something very different and immensely sensible, weren’t you?” Michelle conceded.
“Yes,” he said, still unable to stop himself blushing at the idea of Michelle Nguyen getting her drunken apocalypse freak on. “I think you should get out of the city, too,” he went on quickly to escape the embarrassing moment. “Like, right out. Forget nukes. The Chinese are trying to save themselves, not commit suicide. They’re not going to nuke anyone who can strike back ten times as hard.”
Michelle turned off her computer, closed the top drawer of her desk and locked it.
“Figured as much myself, but go on,” she said.
“What I said this morning,” James said. “About our cities starving. I meant it. I wasn’t exaggerating. I mean, maybe the army and the National Guard can maintain order and, I dunno, distribute emergency rations or something. But…”
He trailed off.
“But you don’t think so, do you?” Michelle finished for him.
He shook his head.
“Not for three hundred million people, no.”
“Three hundred and forty-two million is our current estimate,” Michelle said flatly. “There’s millions of visitors in-country on any given day. Undocumented migrants too, of course.”
“Exactly,” James said. “And they all have to be fed. Every day. I think that was China’s plan. Tie up the military here at home, dealing with a really, really serious crisis, but not an existential threat. Nothing that would give us reason to burn their cities to ash. And a crisis they could deny causing. Plausibly deny it too. Giving them time to…”
He looked for the words to explain what he meant. It all sounded so unreal in his head.
“To change the reality on the ground,” Michelle supplied. “That’s one of our favourites around here. The reality on the ground. And I think you’re probably right. That was their plan. Is their plan. But the reality where we stand isn’t the reality they see or expected to see.”
James shook his head.
“No. They’re a dictatorship. They’re used to smothering dissent, crushing it if necessary. They’ll kill a million people to save a billion without breaking a sweat. I don’t think… I don’t know if we can do the same thing. I think it’s all gonna fall apart, Michelle. I think they’ve miscalculated badly. And I’m pretty sure that when those guys we spoke to this morning, when they realise what’s going down, they’re going to bring the hammer down on Beijing. Hard. Not even if it’s the last thing they do, but because it’s the last thing they’ll do. Ever. We need to get out of this place. Everyone does.”
“We?” she said, tilting her head a little.
James took a breath and let it go with a nervous sigh.
“I’m going to go to my parents place,” he said. “They have a farm in Montana. It’s a long way from anywhere. Pretty good water too, despite the drought. They won’t go hungry. They…”
He stopped. She was looking at him as though he had indeed suggested twenty or thirty espresso martinis and some desktop jungle sex before the air raid sirens started screaming.
“Er… sorry,” James said. “You must have someone who…”
She shook her head.
“No, I don’t. I’m just wondering whether to trust you.”
Again, his expression gave him away. In this case, the offence he took at the suggestion that he was being anything other than honourable.
Michelle snorted.
“Cool your jets, maverick. I think you’re a nice guy. But you forget, my specialty is threat assessment. I’m just running the numbers on you. Wondering whether you’re a potential threat. Specifically, what I’m trying to figure out is whether you’re a bedwetter.”
“What?” James spluttered.
This time she smiled. He’d never met anybody who was so completely unreadable, so reliably disconcerting. Michelle shook her head. The blue tints in her long black hair caught the setting sun and turned a striking shade of opalescent golden green.
“I was assessing whether you might be a panic merchant or a prophet,” she said. “I have no one here. My family is in LA. When I leave the building today, in a few minutes, I’m officially re-designated as a remote asset. I have to be available but not present.”
She held up her phone.
“This is good enough for that. A landline would be better, given the network problems. But what I’m wondering, James, is whether you’re right. Whether we need to get the fuck outta Dodge as well.”
James looked out the window. It seemed perversely quiet out there.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Walk me back to my hotel. Or I can walk you home if you want, I mean if you’re close. Maybe just check some stuff out. Make your own call. But I’m gonna go home. You’re welcome to come along. If it’s nothing, if I’m wrong, I’ll make sure you get back here as soon as you can. If I’m right…”
He trailed off again.
Michelle Nguyen furrowed her brow. A small vertical line appeared between her eyes.
“If you’re right, I need to call my parents,” she said. She stared at the phone on her desk. “Do you mind?”
It took him a moment, but James realised she wanted the room.
“Oh sure, sorry. I’ll just get my stuff.”
He took his gear back to the office they’d assigned him. It had less of a view than Michelle’s. He waited. The hallway was busy with NSC staffers hurrying to and fro. They all seemed to be carrying something. Files, laptops and tablets, boxes full of documents. He fretted about his jacket and wallet. NSC still had reliable net access, allowing him to transfer money onto the credit card linked to his Apple Pay, so he had access to funds. Maybe. But he felt keenly the loss of the suit jacket. It was such a dumbass thing to do. And losing his wallet. Shit, what a nightmare. He was going to have to cancel everything.
But was he? Really?
Not if he believed what he’d just told Michelle. If he genuinely thought it was all going sideways, what was the point of administrivia? He would be better off getting hold of a gun and a backpack full of dried foods.
Michelle was ten minutes coming back to him, and when she did, he could see she’d been crying. Her eyes were red, but she gave no other sign of distress.
“They’re good,” she said. “They’re leaving for my uncle’s place in Washington state tomorrow. He’s a fisherman.”
She explained no further and James did not ask.
He turned in his visitor’s pass at the front desk. The civilian guard inspected Michelle’s bag and his backpack but waved them off.
“Good luck,” he said.
Apple Pay was not working. No credit cards or point of sale systems were functional. And cash was getting hard to find.
“Okay, this sucks,” Michelle conceded as they humped their bags another block, looking for an ATM that hadn’t been emptied, or which wasn’t about to dry up with a long, long line of agitated customers still waiting to grab whatever they could get from it.
They crossed 18th Street to avoid a fight that broke out at the cash machine in front of a Subway restaurant at the intersection with G Street. Vehicular traffic was light, and mostly official, but foot traffic was heavy and concentrated around cash points, although the local bars were doing a brisk trade as well.
The heat had eased off some, but it was still punishing and James offered to carry Michelle’s bag for her. She said no. She was one-strapping it, and James noted she was clutching that single strap tight with both hands. His eyes flitted left and right. The city had a bad feel to it. News of the government evacuating had crowded everything else out of the headlines and appeared to be stoking widespread alarm that could easily flash into something much worse.
“I think we’ve got a couple of hours before this shit explodes,” Michelle said, as they hurried past a CVS pharmacy with its own line out the door. “Just gimme a second, would you?”
She trotted over to the long queue and spoke to a few people at the rear, before returning to James.
“They’re not lined up to cash out,” she said. “They’re stockpiling medicine.”
“Great.”
“Yeah. James, where are you parked?”
“The hotel. I moved my car out of the short-term lot yesterday. I’m gassed up too.”
“Let’s get there. Now.”
They picked up the pace, turning left at 20th and hurrying through the hot dusk and the surprisingly dense crowds of people who seemed to be wandering around with no discernible intent, beyond obsessively checking their phones and randomly piling into those businesses that were still open in spite of the problems with electronic payment. It was a relief to get into the chilled air of the Marriot and recognise the faces of the two women behind the front desk. Wendy… No, she was Wendi, he recalled. And Dee, or something. James smiled and waved to them.
They looked even more stressed out than yesterday, but each managed a wan smile in return for him. Their manager, the douchebag, was nowhere to be seen, but James had that guy flagged as a lurker. He’d be around somewhere. Or he’d be a hundred miles gone by now.
“Mister O’Donnell,” Wendi said. “Welcome back, sir. It’s so nice to see you.”
And the sad thing was, he believed her. Wendi looked like she’d had a day from hell and even a vaguely familiar and friendly face was a blessed relief.
“Computers still out?” he asked, as they approached the desk. He tried to make it sound sympathetic, rather than demanding.
Wendi checked over her shoulder—so yeah, the lurker was still around—and nodded furtively.
“It’s been a day,” she said, and her colleague—Deonie, that was her name—bobbed her head in agreement. “Have you been watching the news?”
“That’s our job,” James said, indicating Michelle, who was standing next to him.
The front desk women took in his companion and her fiercely outré style without blinking.
“Hi,” Michelle said. “You just starting your shifts?”
“No,” Wendi answered. “Thankfully we’re just about done. Night shift is coming on soon.”
“Get home quick then. And safe,” Michelle said. Her voice was flat, almost threatening.
Wendi and Deonie exchanged a look.
“Do you work with Mister O’Donnell? At the National Security?” Deonie asked, as if it might be a state secret.
“Yes,” Michelle confirmed in the same affectless voice. She stared into their faces, one after the other. “Get home quick. And safe. You understand me?”
They did.
“I’m going to check out,” James told them.
“NSC will cover everything,” Michelle added. “As per the booking arrangements.”
That same worried glance from Wendi, before she leaned forward, lowering her voice.
“But the government is leaving.”
“No. Some assholes are leaving. The government isn’t going anywhere,” Michelle assured her. “And if it was, you’d have bigger problems to worry about than chasing down the Marriot’s invoice, wouldn’t you, Wendi? You have a family? I strongly suggest you get home to them.”
Even under all of the makeup Deonie wore, James could see the colour blanch from her face.
“I’ll just get my stuff from the room,” he said. “I’ll get changed too, into some road clothes. Can you sign for the bill?” he asked Michelle.
She waved the ID card hanging from the lanyard around her neck.
“That’s just one of my superpowers. But hurry up.”
He hesitated, then asked, “Should we eat. Before we head out? Might be a while, you know…”
Before Michelle could reply, Wendi interrupted.
“I’m sorry, Mr. O’Donnell, but the restaurant is closed. None of our deliveries arrived today. Nobody’s did. They’re saying it’s an internet thing. Some problem with the stock system.”
“Okay,” James said. “Thanks anyway.”
Michelle grabbed his elbow before he could leave.
“Clean out the minibar,” she said. “The food anyway. Uncle Sam is paying.”
They had a reasonably clear run along the Potomac to the beltway, passing through two checkpoints where soldiers informed them that they might not be allowed to return to the inner city with their car until the emergency declaration was lifted. Michelle surfed the news radio channels while James navigated traffic that was no worse than any usual peak hour, except that it never ended.
By the time they made the made the I-495 interchange, heading north for Maryland, and beyond that for the long haul west on I-80, James’s usual route home to Montana, it was becoming obvious they might need a new plan. The soft summer evening was riven by vast electric rivers of ruby red taillights. Hundreds of horns blared and some drivers had already given up and pulled over to the shoulder, abandoning their vehicles to walk. They had more than two and a half thousand miles ahead of them, and they’d already eaten all of the chocolate bars and potato chips he’d taken from the room.
Michelle had not even stopped at her apartment to pick up extra clothes or belongings. Having committed to their own personal bug out, she reasoned she could just pick up a bag and whatever she needed once they cleared the city. It seemed more important to get out of DC as quickly as possible.
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “Look at this fucking traffic. It probably goes all the way out to Rockville.”
James was listening to a report about the Chinese attacks in south-east Asia. Having struck so decisively at US facilities, the PLA had focussed almost the entirety of its expeditionary combat forces on Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. Japan, Korea, Indonesia and Australia had all been warned to stand down their own forces or face ‘the fury of the Chinese people’.
He turned down the volume as Anthony Kuhn reported from Seoul that the North Korean military had fully mobilised and all roads out of the southern capital were gridlocked.
“I think this traffic is probably worse,” James said in response to the radio, not really meaning it.
“Jesus, James! There’s like twelve or thirteen thousand artillery pieces buried in caves and pointed at Seoul,” Michelle said. “It’s that close to the border. Time-on-target from a long-range gun in the north, to a residential high rise in the middle of Seoul is about forty-five seconds. That city could be gone a minute from now.”
He turned off the radio. It wasn’t helping. None of their mapping apps worked and he didn’t need traffic reports to tell him they were caught in a stationary parking lot that stretched away over the horizon.
“Are you fit?” he asked. “You carrying any injuries?”
She stared at him before answering. A police officer on a motorcycle roared past in the breakdown lane, his siren wailing.
“I do some Zumba,” she said.
“Your boots, are they comfortable?”
“They’re Docs.”
As if that was all she needed to say.
“So you can walk?” James went on.
“You want to leave the car?” Michelle asked.
“We need to leave the car,” he volleyed back. “This is a bad investment. We need to cut our losses and get out now.”
“And what happens after we get out?” Michelle asked. She wasn’t anxious or pleading. She was assessing their odds.
James looked out over the miles of stalled traffic. It snaked away and over the edge of the world in the darkness, somewhere far ahead.
“We walk.”
“To Montana? Are you fucking serious?”
He snorted.
“No. To Germantown. Walking a standard four miles an hour, that’s where we’ll be by tomorrow morning. I’m going to buy another car. Something better suited to dealing with this sort of thing.”
He waved a hand out of the window.
“You can’t just buy a hover car, future boy. You lost your wallet, remember?”
“I still have money. For now. And I have clients up that way. I’ve made them some money. I can do them another favour. Warn them to get the hell away from any major population centre before it’s too late. And I’ll ask a favour in return. A shower, some food. A lift to a branch of my bank. I don’t need cash. A letter of credit for a car dealer will do. I don’t know how long people will keep taking cash once they go hungry anyway. We need a vehicle and gas. Enough to get to Montana. If we have to hunt for food, live off the land along the way, I can do that. I grew up in country, you know.”
He saw her do that thing. Her threat assessment thing.
He saw her make a choice.
“Okay,” she said. Let’s go. But you need to promise you’ll never again say anything like ‘I grew up country, you know’.”
“Yeah. Okay. It did feel a bit weird as it came out,” James conceded.
“That’s because it was weird. Stick to investment metaphors.”
“Done deal,” he agreed.
“There you go,” she nodded.
James pulled the car into the breakdown lane and turned off the engine. He almost left the keys in the ignition. After all, what was the point of taking them? But if he was wrong about all this, and he had to make an insurance claim on the car, no way would they pay him out for leaving the keys behind.
They stepped out into the close, hot night. The noise of the traffic jam rolled over them; the blaring horns, the shouts and the music and clashing talk radio stations drifting through the open windows of so many stationary cars. He smelled rubber and exhaust and fried foods. James left his suitcase in the trunk. It had nothing they could use. They started walking, heading for the next exit onto the 117.
He still carried a backpack, to haul his laptop along with him. When he ditched that, he knew it would mean the end of the world.
29
The City Burns On Water
Jody Sarjanen came out of a deep sleep in a disorienting tumble of memories and thoughts and a half-remembered dream. It didn’t matter, because the first real thing she knew was Maxy, curled up in her arms. She lay on her side in his bedroom, spooned around him, as though all she need do to keep him safe from the world was lie here, quietly.
