“Many hundred pounds of them. You want to know where I got them? It’s a great story.”
Most days, as we get closer to the end, I am content to just be, to wait, to enjoy the company of McConnell and the others, to conscientiously perform the share of tasks that fall to me. And I am usually successful in my efforts to keep my mind focused on the immediate present, on whatever event or requirement comes next—to see not too far into the future, nor too far back into the past.
We tend to get up early, McConnell and I, and it’s morning now, and we’re drinking coffee in the kitchen and looking out the window at the lawn, the sheds, and past that the wooded expanse of the world. The very beginnings of autumn in western Massachusetts, the green trees goldening at their edges. Trish is across the table, telling me about an irritating conversation she had last night with Officer Michelson.
“I’m serious, I was about to fucking strangle the guy,” she says. “Because basically what he was saying is, at this point if it didn’t hit—if there was some last-minute thing, you know, some crazy scenario, like they can blow it up after all, or deflect it, or the religious people pray it out of the sky—Michelson says maybe that would be worse, at this point. You know how he is, sort of smirking, so you don’t know if he’s being serious or not, but he goes, at this point, imagine winding it back. With everything that’s gotten f’ed up, imagine starting over? And I just said, ‘Man, anything is better than death. Anything.’”
“Yeah,” I say, “of course,” and I’m nodding, trying to pay attention, but the moment Trish said the word deflect, my mind exploded with thoughts of Nico: memories of my vanished sister are suddenly everywhere in my head, like invaders pouring across a border. She is four years old and toppling off her bicycle; she is six and staring in confusion at the crowds during the funerals; she is ten and drunk and I am telling her that I will never let her go. The helicopter swoops down to lift me up from blockhouse at Fort Riley, and Nico presses masses of white washcloths into my mess of an arm, tells me it’s going to be okay.
“Hank?”
“Yeah?” I say, blinking.
“You all right?”
In five minutes of talking I tell Trish the whole thing. About Next Time Around, about Jordan and the blonde girl and the computer, about the helicopter. She asks, so I give her what details I remember about the plan itself: the nuclear-standoff blast and the “back reaction”; a sufficient change in velocity with a minimum of ejecta; the secret scientist moldering in the military prison.
“Jesus H. Christ,” says Trish.
“I know.” My coffee is cold. I get up to refill it.
“If the government is so determined to keep this from happening, why didn’t they kill the scientist?”
“Oh, hey,” I say. “Great question. I didn’t even ask that one.”
“Listen, you can’t beat yourself up about it,” murmurs Trish. “If she was going to go, she was going to go.” She had met Nico a couple times over the years—at cop parties, at the station, at my house once or twice.
“Go where?” says Kelli, wandering in in her Sleeping Beauty nightgown.
“Nowhere, honey.”
Kelli is holding hands with her brother, and she opens the pantry to get them snack cakes. Police House follows a strict “kids can eat whatever they want” policy.
“You should go and find her.”
We hadn’t seen Cortez come in. He is standing in the doorway, his expression unusually serious.
“Why?” says McConnell, looking at him. They have yet to make up their minds about each other, these two.
“She’s his sister,” says Cortez. “Can I have one of those, please?”
Kelli hands him a snack cake, and he unwraps it while he talks.
“She is family. She matters to him. Look at him. Everything is different. The asteroid will strike in one and a half months. What if she’s in trouble? What if she needs help?”
Cortez studies me while he bites into the snack cake. McConnell is looking at me, too, her hand on my forearm while I watch the steam rise off my cup.
Yeah, is what I’m thinking. What if?
THANK YOU
Dr. Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Officer Joseph Wright and everyone at the Concord Police Department in New Hampshire; Andrew Winters
My family at Quirk Books: Jason, Nicole, Eric, Doogie, Mary Ellen, Jane, Dave, Brett, and—seriously—everyone else they got over there
My family at my house: Diana, Rosalie, Ike, and Milly
My agent, Joelle Delbourgo
Smart people: business and economics author Eduardo Porter; Mitch Renkow, professor of agriculture and resource economics, North Carolina State University; Christopher Rudolph at the School of International Service at American University; Joe Loughmiller at Indiana American Water; Dr. Zara Cooper; Dr. Nora Osman; Dr. Gerardo Gomez and his colleagues at Wishard Hospital, Indianapolis; Dani Sher, PA-C, and her colleagues at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago; Lieutenant Colonel Eric Stewart of the Green Berets; the folks at Snipercraft, Inc., Sebring, Florida
Early readers: Kevin Maher, Laura Gutin, Erik Jackson, and especially Nick Tamarkin, my own personal Detective Culverson
Colleagues, students, and friends at Butler University, Indianapolis
Colleagues, students, and friends at Grub Street, Boston
And a special thank you to everyone who submitted a “What Would You Do?” essay at TheLastPoliceman.com. Keep ’em coming.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO…
…with just 77 days until the end of the world?
Author Ben H. Winters posed this question to a variety of writers, artists, and notable figures.
Visit QuirkBooks.com/TheLastPoliceman to:
• Read their answers
• Share your own responses
• Watch the book trailer
• Read a Q&A with Ben H. Winters
• Discover the science behind the science fiction
And much more!
Also by Ben H. Winters
BOOK I
1.
“Hey, Al. Come look at this one.”
Susan Wendt studied the screen of her MacBook while her husband, Alex, paused the DVR and walked over to the kitchen table. He read the Craigslist ad over her shoulder and delivered a quick verdict: “Bull crap.” He cracked his knuckles and scootched behind her to get to the fridge. “It’s total bull crap, baby.”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
“Gotta be. You want?”
He held up a Brooklyn Lager by the neck and waggled it back and forth. Susan shook her head, scanning the Craigslist ad with a slight frown. Alex opened the beer and went to crouch beside her. “It’s one of those where the broker lures you in and then goes, ‘Oh that place? That place got taken yesterday! How about this one? Rent is joost a leeeeedle beeeet more expensive….’” He slipped into a goofy gloss on the thick
Brazilian accent of the most recent broker to take them on a wild-goose chase through half of south Brooklyn. Susan laughed.