18
Nothing else on Earth was like Ruth had expected it either, not even James. When they did meet, the next day, she initially mistook him for another politician. Her memory was of thick geek glasses and a desk-belly, but he’d had laser surgery two years ago and nobody in this place carried extra weight.
He looked good. His cheekbones were high and compact above his white mask and his well-trimmed beard, and he appeared to be using the same setting to chop his bristly brown hair as well. At least that was a hint of lab rat mentality, efficiency taking priority over appearances. The one-inch carpet of beard and hair gave him a no-nonsense look that was reinforced by a plain beige sweater. It was an image he’d cultivated, unassuming, inoffensive.
James Hollister had turned into a politician in every sense of the word. He was both a general administrator for the nanotech teams and their liaison to the president’s council. He rode herd on thirty-eight disagreeable geniuses, quelling their disputes, enforcing a rotation of the equipment, and meanwhile championed their interests above every other problem faced by Leadville without excessively irritating the bigwigs above him.
He walked these many tightropes with confidence.
Ruth was attracted to his poise before she knew most of this. She was also much different than she’d envisioned, more alone, more needy — but the father-daughter thing was too strong in her head. She had leaned on James for several months now, going to the radio for guidance and for praise.
Just getting a hug was super. He smelled clean. She might have clung long enough to make him uneasy, then babbled the words she’d held back from Kendricks. “There’s a war going on out there! How did— What’s happening?”
But James didn’t want to talk seriously, another change. To this point their entire relationship had been nothing except scheming and big ideas. He murmured pleasant things. “Your pilot was incredible, they’re talking about a plaque or something,” and pulled his ear and touched his index finger to his mouth and shrugged. Ruth swallowed her questions.
They might be listening.
* * * *
She was released the next morning with a quarter-full bottle of calcium supplements and a handful of aspirin. She had been invaded by a gynecologist, and attacked by a dentist who made her gums bleed, and an optometrist had briefly tested her eyes, and they needed her bed. An ATF assault group had been brought in with gunshot wounds and the peculiar subdermal rash caused by nano infestations.
Major Hernandez personally escorted Ruth out into the vast, crisp light of the open sky, along with James and no less than nine soldiers in three jeeps. James seemed to know Hernandez well, asking after someone named Liz, and Ruth was glad. The two of them were a lot alike, she thought, assured, methodical.
It was good to know that there were still good men.
Yet it felt damned surreal, listening to them chitchat as the jeeps rattled south through residential streets.
“Come by tonight for a drink,” James told him. “And bring your lady. I can definitely scrounge up a little more of that boo juice if you’ve got another can or two of sardines.”
“You know if I find that still, I’ll have to confiscate it,” Hernandez said, with a glance back at his gunner.
“Just don’t look too hard, Major.”
The optometrist had given her sunglasses, giant bug-face aviator shades that she’d donned immediately after James rolled her wheelchair outside. Daylight stung her eyes, muting colors, burning the edges off of the high white mountain peaks.
Ruth stared all around.
The original residents had done everything possible to help the mass of refugees, putting them up in living rooms and sheds and garages, in campers and tents and horse trailers. The locals were definitely not city folk. Everyone had outdoor gear and camping equipment and, briefly, it had been enough. A majority of the displaced population ended up in the hills east of Leadville, but Ruth could still see the results of the locals’ resolve and generosity. Open lots and backyards remained full of improvised shelters. She noticed very few people, though. Why? There could hardly be an economy, jobs, anywhere to go…
They reached a checkpoint, a low wall of cars stacked across the street, two machine guns and a full platoon. Then they left the heart of the fortress, turning out onto a small highway that formed Leadville’s southern border.
James and Hernandez shut up and Ruth hunched over her cast. She’d already been shot at once, and Hernandez hadn’t brought along two extra jeeps just to impress her.
Thousands of bodies worked at the long slope rising away from town, scraping the mountainside out into level terraces. For housing? Ruth couldn’t make sense of it. Several hundred more people clogged the highway, walking in both directions, a bizarre pilgrimage, moving pushcarts and wagons by muscle alone. There were no horses left. In fact she had seen no animals at all except one bird, maybe a hawk, drifting far overhead.
The lead jeep hit its horn constantly. Some of the heavier loads were slow to move aside, though, and the three vehicles managed only ten or fifteen miles per hour, weaving, braking. Ruth saw people with boxes and backpacks, with shopping carts.
They were carrying dirt.
She understood then, but it was easier to turn her head to James than to face the envy and numbed hope of these filthy strangers. “What are they doing?”
“The soil here is lousy, especially up off the valley floor. It’s nothing but rock and hardpack.”
“But the riverbed is…two, three miles from here?”
He just nodded. They turned off the highway after a hundred yards, into another checkpoint, then followed an empty road up the hillside. Ruth looked over at the excavation project and wondered how they would irrigate the cropland they’d built. Surely not by hand, bucket by bucket.
The space and resources dedicated to the nanotech labs were better than she’d feared. Timberline College, a small outdoor and environmental studies school that had often used the field as the classroom, was as large as the hotel and resembled a Swiss chalet. Stout white walls, high windows framed in dark wood, heavy beams jutting out beneath a roof steep enough to prevent snowfall from accumulating.
The courtyard was a jumble of RVs and trailers and aluminum sheds, but this clutter seemed unnecessary, since the two-and three-story building could easily house thirty-eight scientists, their fifty-four family members, and at least most of the security detachment — but the soldiers lived outside, even Hernandez. It was a tactical decision, putting themselves between the scientists and any potential threat. Reaching along the hillside were coils of wire and bulldozed gun positions.
When the jeep stopped, Major Hernandez offered one hand and helped Ruth out. He had brought a collapsible wheelchair that looked newer and better padded than the heavy, rigid frame she’d been using. “Thank you,” she said.
He smiled for the first time before turning back to his men.
James pushed Ruth inside, where he’d secured a ground-floor room for her. It was almost the same white as her lab aboard the ISS. The view was of the hectic courtyard. Her gaze went instead to an off-color rectangular patch that marred the wall adjacent to the window, where a blackboard or a painting had hung for years. The furniture was practically nonexistent, a mattress on the floor and two metal shelves for a dresser. Everything else had been used for firewood.
He said, “Do you feel up for the five-dollar tour?”
“I’m wiped out. I know it’s dumb.” The brisk air had been good but her own apprehension had sapped her energy. Ruth met his eyes, tapped a finger to her lips.
James nodded. Yes. He said, “You should get a little sun. Your body needs the vitamin D.”