“Sure. Down in Palo Alto.” He paused. “Dennis Chang. You don’t work for Neogene, you own it.”
“It owns me. Anyway, last year we got a contract with the Energy Department to see if we could design a high-quantity methanogen out of E. coli. Put enough of ‘em in a vat and they’ll grow until their tiny little farts add up to lots and lots of natural gas.”
“Did it work?”
“Not yet. Another eight, ten months maybe. The point is, the people in Washington were really hot to get it developed, because as far as they could tell we were going to be strapped for oil by this summer. Really strapped.” He waved at the burning slick. “Now look what we have to contend with.”
“Well, if the fuel shortage is going to be that bad, your outfit ought to have top priority.”
“Sure, in theory. But it’ll take weeks to reorganize. My people will be applying for disaster loans and pumping out their basements, instead of working in the lab. The government’s going to be scrambling around with a million other things on its mind.”
They plodded on over the bridge, trading disaster stories and gossiping about mutual acquaintances. Don was glad to have company; as he neared home he was beginning to be afraid of what he might find.
It was late in the afternoon when they reached the eastern shore of the bay. The bridge slanted gently down to where the toll plaza had been, between the mud flats and the Army Terminal; now the shoreline was a broad tangle of wreckage. The seiches had jumbled trees, logs, cars and shattered concrete blocks into a low barrier almost a kilometre wide, from the water to the far side of the freeway.
Many of the people who had walked across the bridge seemed to give up at the sight of the obstacle before them. Some turned back towards San Francisco; others erected crude shelters and even started campfires on the pavement. A few abandoned whatever they had been carrying and began to clamber through the wreckage zone. Don and Dennis watched them working their way through the zone and followed what looked like the easiest path.
Over an hour later, the two men reached what was left of the East Shore Freeway. Its eight lanes were choked with overturned cars, uprooted trees, mud, stones, and even houses wrenched from their foundations. Corpses lay half-buried in the mud, and rats skittered among them.
Speaking very little, they went on north to the University Avenue off-ramp. It was hard going for the first kilometre inland, over mud banks and across big, water-filled holes gouged in the pavement.
At the intersection of University and San Pablo stood two black policemen in orange ponchos. They motioned to Don and Dennis.
“Where you fellas headed?” the older policeman asked. They told him. “Better hustle. Curfew is at seven. Lasts until seven tomorrow morning.”
“Curfew?” Dennis echoed. “Who ordered it? The governor?”
“The mayor. Haven’t heard from the governor all day, far as I know.”
“What if you stay out past seven?” asked Don.
“If you’re lucky, you get thrown in the can and you stay there till we remember to get around to you. If you’re not so lucky, you get shot.”
The two men went on up University; at Sacramento, Dennis shook Don’s hand and turned north. Alone, Don broke into a slow jog. He wanted to get home quickly.
The streets going up into the hills were deserted, though he saw many faces peering out into the twilight from darkened windows. Two blocks from home, he heard a gunshot and saw a tiny patch of sidewalk in front of him suddenly explode as the bullet ricocheted into the gloom.
Don sprang to his left, into the street, and ran for the cover of a parked car. Bent over, he scuttled on to the next car, and then dashed for the corner. The shot was not repeated.
He ran the last two blocks, and bounded up the steps from the sidewalk to the steep front yard of his house. The living-room curtains were drawn, but a sliver of light showed through. The door was locked; he fumbled for his keys and unlocked it, hoping the chain wasn’t latched.
The door swung open. He heard a gasp, and saw Kirstie lying fully clothed on the couch; two candles burned on the coffee table in front of her.
“Don? Oh Christ, but you frightened me!”
“You scared me too.” He shut and locked the door, and went to her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I must have fallen asleep the moment I got home.”
They talked while they improvised a dinner of sausage and stale bagels. She was horrified when he told her about the turbidity current; he shook his head and groaned when she described the fight in the drug room.
For a long time they sat in the kitchen, with a single candle, drinking room-temperature beer and talking quietly. Then they went upstairs and looked out the bedroom window.
“What do we do now?” he wondered.
She turned and looked at him, surprised. “Are you asking me? After all these years of telling me?”
“Kirstie — I’m damned if I know what to do next. After all we’ve gone through in the last six months with UV and flares, and then this. Did you know the cops are shooting people for breaking curfew? And I didn’t even get around to telling you — someone shot at me just down the street as I was coming home.”
“The silly bastard shot at me too.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! You should have told me.”
“So should you.” She gave him a gentle hug. “I think I like you when you’re a little less confident than usual. Makes you almost human.”
“Belt up. The point is that it’s getting too dangerous here. I think we ought to go back to Vancouver.”
“What? After swearing you’d never darken your grandfather’s door again? And all the moaning about how there’s not enough work for us there?”
“At least you don’t get shot at. Well, what do you think?”
“We can’t, not yet. I’ve got Sam’s case to see through, and we can’t just walk away from all those thousands of casualties and homeless people. I’d feel terrible if we did. Let’s tough it out a little longer. All right?”
Reluctantly, he nodded. They went to bed and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Two hours later, light glared in their eyes. Don sat up and saw Kirstie squinting and blinking. Her face and throat were sunburned.
“What—?”
“Power just came back on,” he said. “I’ll go turn things off.”
The refrigerator hummed reassuringly. Don shuffled about, turning out lights and checking the locks. A drunken voice down the street called out: “Happy New Year!” Five or six shots rattled suddenly, and a dog barked frantically.
When he returned upstairs, the bedroom was dark again.
“I turned out the light when they started shooting,” Kirstie whispered. “Christ almighty, we can’t let all this stuff just go on.”
“No.” Standing back from the window, he looked out at the bay again. San Francisco was still dark; street lights burned blue or orange all over Berkeley, and many windows glowed yellow. The air was sour with smoke, and the sky still pulsed orange from the fires.
The street lights brightened suddenly, then dimmed and went out.
Chapter 7
“Bob Tony, it’s the end of the world.” Ted Loeffler stared past the clicking windshield wipers at the crowded freeway.
“Yeah. Ain’t it a bitch?” Allison slumped a little lower in the seat of Ted’s station wagon. Rain drummed on the roof and pooled on the pavement. The Hollywood hills were grey-brown blurs on either side as the car crawled through Cahuenga Pass from the San Fernando Valley. “You see Long Beach when you were coming in?”
“No, but I sure as hell saw Malibu.” Mile after mile of mud and wreckage and an occasional house somehow spared by an accident of topography, and above the wave line the rusty beige of the dead chaparral on the mountainsides.