Chapter 3
"I was the only one who knew how to ride a motorcycle, so I guess I was elected. I'd always talked about equality of the sexes— so here was my big chance. When your parents give you a first name like
'Sissy' you can't just sit around and be one."
Rourke looked at the girl, his eyes smiling. "So 'Sissy' had to prove she wasn't a sissy. And you could've gotten yourself killed. Or worse— and I mean that literally."
The girl winced a little as Rourke checked the security of the bandage on her left shoulder where a bullet had grazed her. "Lucky for me," she began, sucking in her breath hard as Rourke took the blanket back from her and probed at the wound along the left side of her rib cage.
"Lucky you're a doctor."
"Lucky that bullet didn't break a couple of your ribs. It hit you at just the right angle and skated along between the second and third rib and lodged there. In a few days you'll feel fine. Time for that old joke about the guy who's injured, both hands damaged. Says to the doctor, 'You mean after the bandages come off, I'll be able to play the violin?' The doctor nods and the guy says, 'Wow— I could never play the violin before!' But you'll be fine— whatever you do," Rourke added.
"After I passed out, did I— ahh—" the girl stammered.
"What? That ahh of yours covers a wide range of possibilities. But no— all you did was stay passed out. I took the auto ferry downstream— I make it about twenty-five miles or so—
and that's where I removed the bullet along your ribs. Then I decided it was safe to stop awhile. So here we are." Rourke gestured with his hands to the riverside clearing, a semicircle of bright green pines and a few naturally growing cedars at the far side. Beyond the trees were foothills.
"I didn't say anything then?" the girl asked again.
Rourke dropped to one knee beside her, studying her face. There was relief there, and pain too— but something else, uncertainty and fear.
"What shouldn't you have said?" Rourke asked, his voice low, the words slow.
"No— it's just—"
"I'm not going to suppose those Brigands were chasing you for any other reason besides the fact that you were alone and unarmed— and they like women that way especially. But why were you the only one who could ride a bike— what did you get elected to do?" Rourke asked.
"Just— some friends of mine. We were— up in the mountains ever since the War and we had to get—
ahh—" and the girl stopped.
"Next time you say ahh, let me know in advance and I can get a tongue depressor out of the first-aid kit and check your tonsils," Rourke told her.
"I'm sorry," she smiled. "It's just that— ahh—" And she laughed, tears coming into the corners of her eyes a second later as she reached for her left rib cage.
"I forgot to mention you shouldn't laugh," Rourke said slowly.
"I just promised—"
"Here." Rourke fished into his hip pocket and took out his wallet, opened the plastic bag sealing it, and searched inside. In a moment he passed her a plastic coated identity card with his photo on it.
"C.I.A.?"
"Retired. I don't even think there is a C.I.A. any more. I guess what I'm trying to get across is you can trust me— if you need to."
Rourke took one of his small, dark tobacco cigars and lit it in the blue-yellow flame of his Zippo. "Well?" he asked her.
"I'm Sissy Wiznewski— Doctor Wiznewski, really. I'm a kind of geologist," she began.
"What kind of geologist?"
"Seismology. We— Dr. Jarvis, Dr. Tanagura, Peter Krebbs, and I— we were manning a survey station up in the mountains."
"I don't follow you," Rourke said matter-of-factly.
"Well, I don't know if you know it," she began again, "but there are—"
"Fault lines around here," Rourke interrupted. "But the strength of any shocks in the area has been minor so far."
"Right— that's true. That's why we were here. We were recording plate tectonics to compare with plate movement in California and along the West Coast. You may have read or seen something on television about how scientists are trying to figure ways of defusing earthquakes before stress between plates gets so severe that one plate slips and there's a major earthquake."
"So," Rourke said thoughtfully, studying the girl's face— she had green eyes. "So you were studying plate movement here to get a handle on what— other than geologic age— has contributed to stability and to learn what you could engineer into this defusing process."
"Yeah," she interrupted him. "Exactly. So we could learn what we might be able to do to stabilize plate movement on the West Coast. If we investigated the end result of a quiescent fault system then we might learn what sort of things we could do to relieve plate tensions on the West Coast."
"Was it working?" Rourke asked her.
"Yes— I think so. I mean, all the preliminary data we were accumulating seemed to indicate our research was going along the right direction and everything. But it was really too early to tell, then there was the—" The girl stopped, turning her face away to stare at the ground.
"What? Were you sort of like Noah's dove— they sent you out to see if there were still a world left?"
"No," she answered, her voice so soft Rourke could barely hear it. He guessed the girl was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. And Rourke also guessed there was something that was frightening her, more terribly than the pursuit of the Brigands or even the War itself.
"You discovered something, something that couldn't wait any longer," he surmised.
"Yes— we did. It was really an accident, but we're certain about the findings, at least as certain as we can be without field investigation on the spot. I don't know if that's possible. We figured somebody had to tell the Army, or even if the Russians had won the War, tell them. Somebody had to do something. And there isn't time to wait."
"Tell them what?" Rourke asked her, studying the glowing reddish tip of his cigar.
"Who won the War?" The girl looked at him, her eyes wide.
"We all lost— the Soviets have some troops over here, but... You're a scientist, you should see that better than I do. If it's summer now— then why are we wearing heavy clothes, why has the temperature been dipping to the freezing mark at night? What did you find?"
"Tell me one thing first— was the West Coast bombed heavily."
"You have people there?"
"Yes, but— from a scientific standpoint, I need to know. Do you know?"
"Apparently the fault line ruptured under the impact of the explosions there— the old fears about California slipping off into the sea. Well," Rourke sighed, "it happened— there is no West Coast anymore. None— it's gone."
The girl made the sign of the cross, staring down at the ground, heavy sobbing her only response to his words.