Jon went straight for the radio.
Olivia made Kent search the place to make sure there weren’t any patients who might scare her.
Tori went for the kitchen to find dinner.
It was a practiced routine, and one I feared we’d be repeating again and again. The only person who did something a little different was me. I sat down with the atlas to plan our route to Kentucky and to look for anything that might give us a hint as to where a safe haven might be.
I took out the folded map of the state and spread it out on a counter, looking for… I didn’t know what. It wasn’t like there was going to be a big signing saying: “Safe Haven.”
“It’s not about revenge for me,” Tori said as she put a plate piled high with corn and tuna fish in front of me.
I hadn’t questioned her, but she obviously wanted me to know where her head was.
“It isn’t?” I asked. “You sure sound like you want somebody to pay for your father’s death.”
She sat down with her own plate of food, and we ate.
“I do,” she said. “But that’s not why I want to go to Nevada.”
“You mean you don’t want to fight for all that’s right and noble and retake the country?” I said this with a smile, hoping she realized I was overstating things.
She smiled back.
I was happy that we were being civil.
“That would be good too,” she said. “But I’m not crazy. The chance that a bunch of ordinary people can stand up to either of those armies is, well…”
She didn’t have to finish the sentence.
“So then why do you want to go there so badly?” I asked.
Tori sighed. “Because I don’t know what else to do. I can’t just sit around and wait for someone to tell us where the world is headed.”
“I wouldn’t worry about finding things to do. We’ll be pretty busy just trying to stay alive.”
“That’s not enough,” she argued with passion. “We didn’t ask for this. We had no say. Nobody voted on whether SYLO should be allowed to lead us to Armageddon or if the Air Force needed to fight them to save the world. If we just shrug and say, ‘Oh well, let’s make the best of it,’ then we’re allowing ourselves to remain victims. We didn’t have a say before. Now we do.”
We let that sit there for a while as we ate. I was happy that Tori was opening up to me. It wasn’t something she did very often. Or ever. Maybe we were becoming friends again.
She said, “I’m telling you this because I want you to know that even if we find some incredible Eden in Kentucky, I’m not staying. I won’t blame you if you decided to, and I’d be shocked if Jon and Olivia didn’t. Kent says he wants to fight, but he’s selfish. If we find a place that’s sweet enough, he’ll stay. But I won’t.”
“I’ll be honest with you, Tori,” I said. “I don’t know what I’ll do. I hear what you’re saying. I don’t like being a victim. But I don’t want to be stupid either.”
“That’s why I won’t blame you if you stay.”
“I’ll tell you something else,” I said. “It’s good to want to fight for control of our lives. I’m all for that. But that’s not where my head is.”
“I get it. You’d want to stay in Kentucky,” she said, obviously disappointed.
“No, I want something else.”
“What else is there?”
I hesitated a moment before answering. I didn’t want to use the words lightly.
“You may not want revenge,” I said. “But I do.”
Tori’s face dropped. She hadn’t expected that.
“I’m angry,” I said. “My best friend was murdered, my life was taken from me, and my parents are part of the problem. Oh, and a few billion people were wiped out. Let’s not forget that.”
“So you want to join the survivors and fight?” she asked.
“Not necessarily. You’ve seen what we’re up against. I’m not suicidal.”
“So then what do you want?” she asked, confused.
“I don’t know yet. I’m going to keep my options open.”
Tori nodded thoughtfully. “I get it, but like you said, we don’t want to be stupid. Acting out of anger could be a mistake.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“One step at a time, right?” she said with a smile.
“That’s my new motto.”
“Do me one favor?” she asked.
“What?”
“Before you do anything, tell me?”
“Sure.”
She gave me a quick smile and left me alone.
I wondered if she realized that I had just lied to her.
After eating I went looking for Jon. He disappeared soon after we arrived, and I wanted to know if he got the radio working. I went right to the office of the emergency room, figuring that if there were a radio, it would be near there. Sure enough, there was a closed door behind the reception desk, much like the other hospitals where we stayed. Better still, I heard Jon’s voice coming from inside.
My hopes jumped. Not only had he found a working radio, he was talking to somebody! He’d made contact. Was he talking to the survivors? I went right for the door and yanked it open…
…but the room was dark. Jon sat at a desk that held a radio, but the screens were blank. No power lights were lit. For a second I thought that I had somehow messed things up by opening the door, but that didn’t make sense.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I couldn’t power it up,” Jon said. His voice cracked, and he appeared nervous. “Must be the batteries. I’ve tried everything, but it’s no good. I… I’m sorry. I did my best.”
He was shaken by the fact that he had failed. Jon had a pretty high opinion of himself. Guys like that didn’t like to be proven fallible.
“It’s okay, not your fault,” I assured him. “Wait, who were you talking to?”
“You heard me?” he said, sounding embarrassed.
“Yeah, I thought you had made contact with someone.”
“No, I was just talking to myself. I do that when I get frustrated. I have these debates with myself. You know, I take both sides of an issue and hope that one side can shake some ideas loose from the other. Most times I don’t even realize that I’m doing it. I know, stupid.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Yes, it was.
“Well, it didn’t work this time,” he said, sounding defeated. “I’m stumped. Sorry, Tucker, I let you down again.”
“No, you didn’t. If it weren’t for you, we never would have heard the broadcast in the first place. Go get something to eat. We’ll try another radio somewhere else.”
He jumped up quickly and hurried past me out of the room as if it bothered him to be near the scene of his failure. Jon was an odd guy. He was totally arrogant yet at the same time lacked self-confidence. I don’t know why I tried to make him feel better about failing with the radio. That meant less to me than the fact he had ratted us out to the enemy back at Faneuil Hall. I was glad to have him with us, but at the same time I didn’t feel as though I could rely on him if things got hairy.
I didn’t really mind that he couldn’t get the radio working either. I didn’t want to hear that broadcast again. It would just spin the wheels in my head even faster. I had the distinct feeling that tomorrow would be a long day. It was more important to get some sleep, so I closed the door on the useless radio room and found a bed to sack out on.
We all woke early because the emergency room had windows that let in the morning sun. We ate the rest of the canned food that Tori had found, washed up, and headed for the Explorer. It was a brisk morning. I could see my breath. Winter was on the way.
Olivia slid up to me as we walked to the car and whispered, “I’ll bet it’s about eighty-five degrees in the Florida Keys right now.”
I ignored her.