Lost Time (14 page)

Chapter 22

Shannon: Yellow Brick Road

S
omewhere around fifty miles outside of St. Louis, we spot the Lou.

“Holy smokes,” I say. “It’s huge!”

Madders laughs. “If you think this one’s big, wait till you see C-Bay.”

I lean between the front seats, watching Madders adjust our heading.

He flips on the radio. “St. Louis tower, Cessna one-fower-zero-niner-fife from the Bub. Come in, please.” He waits for ten or fifteen seconds and then repeats the hail.

Mr. C gives him a concerned look. “Should I be worried?”

I poke him in the ribs. “It’s all right, Mr. C, I’ll protect you.”

Madders chuckles. “Last time I was here they were having trouble with their equipment, so they were using a hand-held transceiver. If they didn’t get it fixed, their signal won’t be very strong.”

“Which means,” I say for Mr. C’s benefit, “now that we can see them, they’ll be able to hear us. But until we get really close, we’re in the drink.”

“Hopefully,” Mr. C says, “we can keep our heads above water.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Madders says, still smiling. “They knew we were coming, and we’re right on schedule.”

“Weird how everything is so green,” Mr. C says, looking out his window, “but nothing is moving.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s hard to believe there used to be so many people.” We’re flying over what used to be the suburbs of St. Louis. “I’ve just seen maps and photos, but it looks way bigger in real life.”

“How many people are in the Lou?” Mr. C asks.

“About three hundred,” Madders says.

“Two hundred and ninety-one to be exact,” I say. “The Lou was the second biodome built by Mr. Kirk, and he made tons of improvements over ours. It’s four times the area of the Bub, and they have a theater, a bowling alley, and a water park.”

“Wow.” Mr. C looks suitably impressed. “Sounds like I fell out of the wrong tree.”

Madders laughs.

“Mr. Kirk must have been a very busy man.”

“Yep,” I say. “He personally supervised the building of twenty-three biodomes, and he gave away his patents so that other people could build hundreds more without paying him.”

“Hell, that must make him the savior of the world,” Mr. C says, not sounding like he means it at all.

“Not many folks alive today who would disagree,” Madders says and repeats the hail on the radio.

There’s some static and then a female voice comes through. “Matt, are you there? This is Shelly at the Lou, over.”

“Shelly, darling, are we ever glad to hear your voice. What’s up? Over.”

“Matt, there’s been an accident. The seal on the east wall failed, and the extra stress on the generator caused it to fail too. We have everything locked down, but there’s no power. Omaha is sending out help, and we have enough O
2
to last until they get here, but there’s no way to refuel your plane.”

“Bloody hell,” Madders says. “Anything we can do to help?”

“Not unless you’re carrying a 250-kilowatt generator in your pocket.”

“Sorry, Shell, I’m fresh out.” He glances at the fuel gauge. “Unfortunately, we’re past PNR for KC. What do you advise?”

“Your best bet is to head to Catersvill
e—
and hope to hell they don’t shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Did you say Catersville?” Madders’ voice is full of disbelief.

“Yep. According to our records, they have ample fuel reserves.” There’s a click and a few seconds of silence, and then she comes back on. “Sorry, but I gotta go. Good luck to you. Shelly out.”

“Shit,” Madders says and cuts back on our airspeed. “Seems we’re in for a little extra excitement today, folks.”

“What’s PNR?” Mr. C asks.

“Point of no return,” I say, “when more than half your fuel is spent, so you can’t turn around and go back.”

Mr. C looks a little green around the gills. “So what’s the bad news?”

Madders pulls a chart and a compass out of the door pocket and hands them to me. “Can you take a look, Shannon? Get me a distance and heading for Catersville, please?”

“You betcha!” I unfold the map on top of Bearhart’s crate, happy to finally use my navigation skills. My furry ball of puppy love gets up, turns around a couple of times, and then goes right back to sleep.

“Shouldn’t we land and see if we can help them?” Mr. C asks.

Sometimes he says the dumbest stuff. “Well,” I say, “unless you have an inflatable biodome hidden in your backpack, there’s not much we could do. Without power, everything will be on battery backup, and that won’t last long. They have emergency procedures just like we do in the Bub, and we’d just be in the way.”

Madders taps his finger against the fuel gauge. “And if we land, we’d be stuc
k—
and that would just add three more people to the evacuation list.” He glances over at Mr. C. “Or, at least, two more.”

“Right.”

“Okay,” I say, double-checking my numbers. “Catersville is a bit over three hundred kilometers. Given the current wind speed, you should set the bearing to one-three-eight, give or take.”

“Got it.” Madders locks in the new course. “Good work, Shenanigans.”

“What about Kansas City?” Mr. C says, looking out his window at the huge expanse of lifeless buildings and overgrown freeways. “Maybe we should go back there?”

“Well, we could try, but we’d have to fly around the storm behind us, and as the crow flies, it’s a hundred-fifty kilometers farther than Catersville.”

“Okay. So what’s the next closest choic
e—
besides Catersville?” he asks.

“Omaha,” I say. “More than twice as far
and
in the wrong direction.”

Madders takes us down a bit, probably to save fuel. “And Omaha is low on petrol reserves. If they fill up our plane, that gives them one less emergency flight out in the future.”

The tops of the trees are all covered with blackbirds. Everywhere you look, there are hundreds of them. It reminds me of that scary movie where all the birds go psycho and attack people.

Ick. Better than snakes, though.

“So,” Mr. C asks. “What’s wrong with Catersville? And what did that woman mean by ‘shoot first’?”

“The biodome was built by private donors in record time,” I say. “And they sealed it up as soon as it was finishe
d—
before there was any real threat. Mom says they only let crazy, old rich guys in, people who believed God was punishing mankind. And Becky told me they force people who break their laws to go Outside without a biosuit.”

“I’ve heard that too,” Madders says. “But I think it’s exaggerated. In any case, before we land, I want you to cover up with the blanket in back. Keep a low
outline
,” he says with a smile. “Once we’re back in the air, you and Diego can trade seats, and I’ll let you take the controls for a bit, assuming Mr. C doesn’t mind.”

“Not a bit,” he says. “But why have Shannon hide?”

Madders gives him an adult look, the kind that means:
Let’s not talk about this in front of the children.
“Why don’t you unplug your suit and do a practice run with the blanket, Shannon? Make sure you can fit completely underneath it?”

“Okay, but what about Bearhart?” I ask. “Should I cover him too?”

“No need. Your mother said the sedative would last until we were well inside the Lou, so he should be fin
e. The little guy will
probably just sleep through the whole thing.”

“That sounds doggone good,” I say and make a show of unplugging my suit.

The instant I get the blanket over my head, I carefully plug my headphones back in.

“…ville is one of a handful of strict fundamentalist bubbles,” Madders says, “and they don’t take kindly to non-believer
s—
or strangers, for that matte
r—
unless you happen to be young and female. Total wackjobs. They used to do an occasional hostage exchang
e—
you know, expel non-believers and take in new bloo
d—
but that hasn’t happened in a while. Maybe like ten or twelve years.”

“Yikes.”

“And Shannon was correct about the biodome being populated by men. What few women they had, died
—
executed by their husbands, if you believe the rumors.”

“Christ.”

“Not so much.” He glances at Mr. C. “I hope to hell they have fuel and a pumper truck, or we may be getting religion real fast.”

I fluff the blanket to show them I’m still doing something back here.

“So you think it’s okay to land at Catersville, I mean with Shannon in back?” Mr. C asks.

“No, but what choice do we have? It’s not particularly difficult to put this beauty down on any sort of flat surface, assuming we can get the birds to clear out. Trouble is, we’d have to walk from there to the next bubble, and Shannon and I didn’t really pack for a cross-country trek in the Tennessee woods.”

I’ve never heard Madders sound so worried, and it scares me. I glance over at Bearhart asleep in his crate, wishing I could stroke his soft puppy fur and tell him that everything’s going to be fine.

“But if it comes to that,” Madders says, “I’m counting on you to get Shannon to C-Bay. There’s a stash of sterilized rations in the back of the plane, and assuming you can fend for yourself, it should last for six weeks or more.”

“What about you?” Mr. C asks.

“We’ll have to think up some excuse… I’ll wander off, or eat a bulle
t—
there’s a rifle in back, by the way, but only a handful of rounds.”

“What in Christ’s name are you talking about, Matt? Suicide?”

“I’m an old git, and I already spent my dime. The food’ll last two, three times longer without me. Give you and Shannon a fighting chance.”

“Well forget it. We’ll just wait here until the rescue party comes for us.”

Madders laughs. “You’re in the rescue plane right now, mate. There’s no way they’d have the resources to come looking for us any time soon, not with the Lou going down and all. It could take weeks, months even, for them to find u
s—
assuming they’d even know where to start looking.”

“Then I’ll leave you here and go for help.”

“Across eight hundred miles of wilderness? I don’t doubt that you could make it, but with a bum leg and nothing but the shirt on your back, it’d take you months. We’d be long gone by the time you got back.”

“Then we’ll all go together. There’s gotta be an old highway we can follow. We’d stay out of the swampy woods, rig up some sort of wagon. Shit, who’s to say we couldn’t find an old car and get the thing running?”

“After twenty goddamn years of rusting in the rain an
d—”

“Christ on a bike, Matt. Stop talking stupid. I’m not leaving you or Shannon anywhere, and that’s that.”

“Well let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that,” Madders says. “But if it does, you’ll know how to handle it.” Before Mr. C has a chance to protest, Madders reaches back and squeezes my knee.

I blink the tears out of my eyes, then peek out from the blanket and give him a shaky thumbs-up. After I spend another minute repositioning the blanket and snuffling my nose, I pretend to plug my suit back in.

“I’m all set,” I say, trying to sound cheerful. “The blanket is plenty big.”

“Good girl,” Madders says, his voice full of false optimism. “Identify the problem, engineer a fix, and Bob’s your uncle!”

I just hope Bob wasn’t one of the guys who got shoved out the airlock.

We sit in silence for half an hour, listening to the drone of the engine and watching the ground slip past underneath.

At last I spy a straight strip of road running parallel to us. “Freeway at nine o’clock, Madders. If my calculations are correct, it’s the Yellow Brick Road. Should take us right to the biodome.”

“I see it!” Madders says, banking the plane to the left. “Excellent navigation work, Shenanigans. Once we get out of this mess, you’re going to make one hell of a pilot.”

A few minutes later, we’re flying over the highway. It’s overgrown with plants and dotted with derelict cars and trucks, but it still looks like the Yellow Brick Road to me.

Mr. C takes a sip of water from a metal canteen, and I try not to think about how thirsty I’m getting. I could run the recycler in my suit, but that would take battery power I don’t want to wast
e—
at least until I know I’ll be able to recharge or fire up the solar panels. “Can we make it to Chesapeake Bay on one tank?” I ask.

Madders glances at the instruments. “If Catersville fill us up, we’ll need a tailwind and a little luck, but I think it’s doable. And the moment we’re within visual range of C-Bay, we’ll let them know we’re out here.” He glances back at me. “That way if we run out of fuel, we’ll just find a place to set her down and sit tight until they pick us up.”

“And you’re the most important man alive,” I say to Mr. C. “Mom says that Dr. Kirk will do anything to get you to C-Bay.”

Mr. C turns around. “
Doctor
Kirk?”

“There!” Madders says and points through the windshield. “You can see the bubble.” He flips a couple of switches. “Catersville Approach Control, Cessna one-fower-zero-niner-fife: Do you read me? Over.” Madders waits a minute and repeats the hail. “I’ll leave it on. Maybe they’ll see the plane and invite us for supper.”