Krista looked at Wicks after her ears stopped ringing. She held up a stiff index finger. “If I ever tell you to stop again to piss in an uncontrolled sector, I want you to pull out your .45 and shoot me in the head.”
CHAPTER 20
Summer walked with a heavy heart into Morse’s lab and pointed to the spot on the floor where she wanted Sergeant Barkley to lie down and snapped her fingers.
The dog responded to her suggestion, slinging his front legs out first, then dropping his hind end down in a gingerly manner.
She rubbed the fur under his collar with fervor. “Good boy. You rest now.”
Summer went to the chair behind Morse’s work desk and sat down. She scooted forward on the seat with an arched back and a determined chin, then tucked her legs under and crossed them.
If she didn’t know better, she would have felt as though she’d been asked to attend an important meeting. One that had been called to deal with a crisis head-on.
In some strange manner, both of those points were true. This was a meeting with the ghosts of two men she’d just lost. And the crisis was about her taking over as the head of Nirvana. So much had changed so quickly, she wasn’t sure what to do first.
She kept her eyes forward as she put her hands together on the desk, then laced her fingers together, never moving the rest of her body except for the occasional blink of her eyelids.
The tears racing down her cheeks were to be expected. So was the tightness pressing on her chest. However, what she didn’t expect was the overwhelming need to sit motionless in an office filled with stale air and unfinished experiments.
Perhaps it was sign of respect for a brilliant man who couldn’t sit still, despite his failing body, always working on something important.
Morse had once called it Mission Critical Duty, a phase he’d coined back when Summer had first met him.
It was the type of duty he hoped would make the lives of those around him better. Duty that might lessen the pain and suffering of the cherished few who called Nirvana home. Duty that took his life, consuming what few hours and days he had remaining.
The man had many courses to choose from when he learned about his terminal cancer. And what did he do? He chose the most selfless route—preferring to do for others, regardless of what little time he had left.
Another minute marched by, then ten more came and went, all while Summer held her statuesque pose, her mind turning in on itself, drifting deeper in thought as she cried for her lost friend.
She had no idea why she’d decided to sit alone in this room and do so in such an uncomfortable position. Some might think it was punishment for the time she’d wasted with him, not knowing that any one of those moments might be the last she’d ever share with him.
When her silent tribute reached thirty minutes, Summer took a deep breath and swallowed the pain whole. It wasn’t easy, but she found the strength to turn off the tears and wipe the wetness away with her sleeve.
When she brought her eyes down, she noticed at least a hundred scratches across the surface—each one of them a faint reminder of a project long since forgotten.
Some of those ventures she’d been a part of, while others were conducted in secret, all of it exactly how Morse preferred it—both shared and private, depending on his mood at the time. Or, perhaps, his intentions at the time.
Those two reasons may have been the same thing, given who Morse was and how he lived his life. He was a simple man and a diligent observer, not just of science and fact, but of people, too. A man she’d miss more than words could ever express.
Summer sniffed twice, then uncoiled her hands to put her palms flat against the marred surface. The cold emptiness of the desktop eased into her skin, acting as a cruel reminder of what life was like in a frozen world after The Event.
She closed her eyes and let her mind conjure a vision of the two of them working together at that same desk. It was a scene from the last time she was in his lab, discussing his latest project and her most recent Seeker Mission.
They’d laughed together without a care in the world, all the while conversing like normal people, if that term meant anything anymore.
Had she known he was terminally ill, she would have made the time they had together more meaningful, before he was gone for good.
Whether it would have been an extra hug, a second kiss on the cheek, or a firm hold of his hand, it didn’t matter. Something would have better than nothing. Something other than the complete selfishness she’d let consume her. The same went for Edison too—both of her favorite men taken from her life far too soon.
Another vision flashed in her mind. This time it showed Morse’s face opening his eyes right before he died and whispering the words Red radio thirty-five to Liz.
Liz had called the phrase nothing more than random gibberish. But Summer didn’t think it was nothing. Morse always had a plan or something he wanted to teach.
Summer looked at the dog on the floor. “It has to mean something, boy. We just need to figure out what.”
When her eyes came back up, she let them drift to the shortwave transmitter sitting on the corner of the worktable to her right. She got up and went to it, standing with her hands on her hips.
Morse’s plan was to fix the device, then convince Edison to start making calls to see if anyone else was around. Morse seemed concerned that they shouldn’t remain cut off from the rest of the planet, assuming there was a rest of the planet.
The microphone wasn’t attached to the radio, which was normal. Morse kept it in the file cabinet along the back wall, not wanting to jinx anything. That was a term he’d used more than once, tipping his hat to superstition instead of being guided by the sanctity of logic.
Summer shook her head. “So much for not jinxing it.”
She spun around and walked to the cabinet behind her, not far from a grease board where Morse had written a cluster of calculations in red marker ink, with the letters E. O. D. under them.
Summer opened the drawer where he kept the mic and pulled it out, having to move a white envelope and a frayed extension cord out of the way to grab it. She shut the drawer, then spun and went back to the radio, taking a seat in the chair in front of it.
A second later, the microphone was plugged into the port with a snapping click of its end. She flipped the power button on and waited for the device to roar to life with its lights blinking and cooling fan whirring.
She brought the microphone up to her mouth and was about to press the transmit button, but stopped when her mind filled with a memory of Morse preaching the words, “Patience is a virtue in all things we do.”
Summer moved the mic away from her lips and put it on the worktable, then took her hands away, laying them in her lap as she stared at its cord leading to the radio. “Not until it’s fixed and ready to go,” she muttered, channeling something Morse had said. She peered at Sergeant Barkley. “Right, boy? We wait. When it’s ready, we make the call. Not a moment before.”
The dog let out a long, guttural moan that kept changing in pitch, his jaw moving as if he were trying to say something.
“Exactly,” she said, laughing at the strange antics of her four-legged friend. “We just need to find someone who can fix this thing.”
The only person she knew capable of such a feat was the man in the brig—Doctor Lipton. He was a total asshole, but apparently very smart. At least Lipton himself thought so, and he never let anyone forget it. “We might be able to convince him to help,” she told the dog. “But Krista isn’t going to allow it. I guess I’ll have to make it an order.”