“Teresa, I don’t know what to say,” he whispered miserably. “We may never… that is, if anything happens to me…” he choked and then swallowed a lump and shook his head. “Oh hell, why am I screwing around? What I want to say is, that if anything goes wrong, I just want you to know that I love you. With all my heart, and until my last breath, I love you.”
Teresa pulled back a few inches and Justin saw that she was crying. He’d never seen her cry before. Wiping a tear from her chin, he tilted her head up a fraction and stared into her dark, glistening eyes. After a long moment, she blinked hard and wiped her nose with the back of her hand before emitting a bitter little laugh.
“Guess that’s good,” she said heavily. “Cause I gotta say somethin’ too. See, I’ma have a baby. Your baby.”
Justin reeled, buffeted by conflicting emotions. It was entirely possible— they’d never used any kind of birth control. But how had she arrived at this conclusion? And had she been with anyone else, at Baron Zero’s, perhaps? Much as he didn’t want to know, he had to ask.
“Are you… sure?” he asked softly. “That is, how do you know for certain? And do you know for certain that it was me? It couldn’t have been anyone else?”
She shook her head. “Naw, only you,” she said. “And trus’ me, I gotta baby. I snicked one’a them prego-tests from that wreckered SA? Turnt blue an’ ever’thing.”
“Teresa, I, I don’t know what to say! Again! This is wonderful news, of course! I can’t even quite believe it. Me! A father! But…” he trailed off lamely.
“Yeah, I know whatcha mean,” she said. “Sure as ploop ain’t the best time for it, hey? With the world, way it is, the Sick and the Fall and Saving the Humanity Race an’ all that. An’ now you goin’ off, prob’ly get yerself clacked, an’ even if ya don’t, you be all the way out in Cali, savin’ the world,” she gasped and began to sob in earnest, shaking in his arms.
For a second he thought about reassuring her, telling her that it wasn’t that bad and that she shouldn’t worry, but the words died in his throat. She was far too smart and experienced to fall for something like that, and besides, he didn’t like to lie. Finally he just hugged her closer and told her the truth.
“Teresa, listen to me,” he said, feeling her hot tears through his shirt. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. This plan might work out and it might not. If it doesn’t, well, that will be the end. For you, for me, for our child, and for everyone else. Maybe not right away, but eventually, the Plague will claim us all. And if the plan does work, and we can get Mr. Lampert to the labs in San Francisco and make a vaccine? Well, then we’ll have won and you and I and everyone else will be able to start living again. See what I’m saying?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Like flippin’ a coin, hey? One or the other. Guess that makes it kinda easier, like, to think about.”
For a long moment they just stood and held each other. Then Teresa, her voice muffled in his chest, sniffed and looked up at him.
“What it be like?” she asked softly. “When we win, I mean. When we stop the Sick and start livin’, like you said. What that gonna be like?”
Justin sighed and smiled. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about it that much. But I do know that it will be better. And with any luck, much more peaceful.”
“Yeah, but,” she persisted. “Like, we gonna have our own place? Like a house?”
“Well, certainly!” Justin smiled. “And why not? It’s not like there’s a housing shortage anymore. Who knows? Maybe we can find a place in San Francisco. I’ve heard it’s very nice! Or, for that matter, we could live anywhere we want, as long as it’s safe.”
“Safe, yeah. Like with no bangers, hey? No muties or cannibos or road freakers or anything like that, right?”
Justin nodded. “Yes. It’s what we used to call civilization.”
She smiled faintly and nodded. “Yeah, like Before,” she said wistfully. She stared into his eyes again for a long moment. Then she looked down and sniffled. “Still wish I could go with. Gonna be hard, stayin’ here, waitin’ an’ thinkin’ about it.”
“I know, but I need to know that you’re safe. Now more than ever! And I promise I’ll send word as soon as I can.”
Then came a yell from the adjoining room, calling his name, and he pulled back to arm’s length and dredged up a smile for her. Gamely, she smiled back.
“I guess it’s time,” he said.
“Uh huh,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears again but this time she blinked them back and smiled. “I love you, Justin,” she said simply. It was the first time she’d ever used just his first name.
“I love you, too, Teresa,” he managed, his heart lurching. Then, with a supreme effort, he straightened up, tugged his uncomfortable armored bodysuit into shape, and set his jaw. Improbably, Teresa apparently found this amusing and let out a sniffling laugh.
“Ya know, Case?” she grinned through tears. “You kinda look like somebody who gonna save the Humanity Race! Like, if anybody could do it, you could, hey?”
“Really? You think so?”
“Yup. Now go on. Go finish this thing.”
A final kiss, and then, in one of the most difficult acts of his life, he turned and walked away.
Chapter Fifty-Six
This week on Historical Crime Busters, Amadeus Mozart goes head to head with a biker gang while Orville and Wilbur Wright mean double trouble for a swindler! Don’t miss the excitement!
After all of the planning and talk and preparation, it felt good to Lumler to finally be doing something. Not that he didn’t appreciate the value of planning, but he was not really much of an idea man. To him, guns blazing was a strategy. But this was not some raid on a den of traitors; the future of mankind was on the line. If they screwed it up and didn’t get Lampert, Dr. Kaes, and Stiletto to the Governor’s plane, they were all dead. As in everyone on Earth.
This concept, that humanity itself was on the brink of extinction, had a strong influence on him, but his nature and thought processes were not such that he dwelt on it. Instead, he felt a very strong but very nebulous sense of free-floating anxiety, one that dwarfed even the horrors of the Fall, like a big storm was coming, building just over the horizon, that would soon come roaring down on them all like an avalanche. Like the End was near.
Doggedly, he shook off this baleful line of thought and kept his eyes and ears open. They were rolling along in the city’s main storm sewer, riding a sort of train of five old electric golf carts the Council had rigged up to move quickly and quietly through the underground. Splashing through about an inch of brackish water at maybe ten miles an hour, they’d already gone about half a mile, and the right-hand turn toward the Governor’s mansion should be just ahead.
He thought back to the other night, when they’d ambushed and killed that psycho Hanson Knox, the late Chief of Police, but it had been such an open and shut, by-the-book operation that he didn’t dwell on it for long; the man had deserved to die and he had died, quickly and efficiently. End of story.
Sitting in the final occupied car, with only the storage cars behind, he kept glancing backward, just in case, but their trail was clear and mostly he just had to wait. After another long stretch of sewer tunnel they came to an intersection and slowed down to make the turn. Slowly as Santiago went, though, it became obvious that the golf cart train wouldn’t make the angle and they’d have to dismount and shift the cars by hand.
Quickly, they all piled out and took up positions on the carts’ sides and then heaved the relatively light vehicles around the 90-degree bend in the tunnel. As they dropped the last cart, a heavier one filled with ammo and weapons and covered in a tarp, Lumler was jolted by the small but quite audible and definitely human grunt that issued from its interior. What the hell? With a quick jerk, he ripped the tarp from the cart and jumped back.