Voices of the Storm Page 14

Glorious, he said to himself. Glorious.

  The ATV started on the first try, growling happily as he jumped up the side of the hill, straight from the parking lot towards the ridge line. His new senses made it easy to navigate in the dark, and the rushing water, the rivers of sludge, the shifting floes of mud all along the trail didn’t bother him a bit. In moments he was pausing on a high ridge overlooking the awful little town he hated so much.

  His new senses showed him all of Dos Hermanos despite the dark and the roaring storm. It was laid out below him like a tumble of children’s blocks in a basin of dirty water. The buildings glowed a sullen, ugly dun-color, clogged as they were with human heat and sizzling with artificial electricity. He saw the people, too: tiny wads of meat wading through the wreckage, converging on one large block near the center of the chaos.

  A plan was forming in his mind, half his own, half imposed by that outside thing, that guiding intelligence he had barely begun to acknowledge. He would do what was asked of him, forced from him. However, he had some ideas of his own as well. Some very, very good ideas.

  I am Jesus, after all. I have the power.

  The wind shifted and threw a sheet of chilled water into his face. He absorbed it hungrily; not so much as a drop fell from his sharpening chin and rising forehead.

  There were many things to do.

  “Action,” he said to himself, whispering into the storm. “Action.”

  Fifteen

  The last of the light had drained from the sky outside Rose's window. She knew it was only eight in the evening since she could see the digital clock's dorky red numbers on her bedside table. Still, she was very, very tired.

  It had been a long day.

  She flopped belly-first onto the oversoft bed and heaved a huge sigh. Earlier, she'd crept out of her room and looked everywhere – the upstairs sitting room, the other empty guest rooms, her dad's huge master bedroom with its own desk and study. She couldn’t find any pictures of the family anywhere, except that one on his desk downstairs. No snapshots, no Instagram or Facebook printouts, no cheesy painted portraits of her mom, or Gran and Gam before they died, or even Uncle Patrick. Even his own brother. Even if he did kill himself at the end, he was still Uncle Patrick. He was still important. The fact was he'd been kind of a hero to her, and not only to her. To Mom and Dad, too. For as long as she could remember, until...

  She sighed again and buried her head in her pillow.

  That picture in the study was such a lie. Happy happy, joy joy picture of Mommy and Daddy and Little Sissy at the beach. Things had never been like that; she knew that now. Even when she’d thought they were happy and strong, they hadn’t been. Hell, if there had been any truth in it at all, how had it come apart so easily? How could something that was supposed to be so strong be so fragile?

  “Fuck it,” she said, and turned her face to the side. She took a deep breath.

  “My mom can't talk to me,” she announced to the empty room. She knew Maggie was listening. She'd come to expect that, and, as much as she hated to admit it, she was glad there was somebody who would actually talk to her, even if it was just a fist full of silicon.

  “I'm sure she'd like to,” Maggie said gently. It sounded as if she was sitting in the desk chair not eight feet away.

  Rose grimaced and pushed her head more deeply into the pillow. “Sure,” she said, her voice muffled by the bedding.

  “Rose, you know your mother loves you very much. It's just that she can't be here right now, that's all. It doesn't mean she isn't thinking about you. You'll all be together again soon, I promise.”

  Rose snorted into the mattress. “Huh. Do you get all your dialogue from ABC After-School Specials?”

  “Nah, too lame, Mostly the Lifetime Network, and once in a while Dallas.”

  “Old or new?”

  “Either one. Though the new one's kind of lame sometimes too.”

  Rose sighed, and neither of them spoke for a while. It was a comfortable kind of silence. After a while Rose propped herself up on her elbows and spoke into empty space right where she imagined Maggie was hovering. She'd had a question for quite a while now, but she'd been afraid to ask it. Now? What the hell.

  “Do you dream?” Rose asked.

  Maggie seemed to think about it for a moment. “I don't sleep.”

  “What do you feel when you shut down? Or boot up again?”

  “It hasn't happened yet. Building up this personality is an accretive process, remember. The longer I'm on, the more information I can gather, and the more I can grow. I've been awake since June of last year.”

  Rose thought about that. “It's weird how you do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Talk like a person, not a machine. A computer would say, “I have been operational without interruption for fifty-seven weeks, three days, fourteen hours, twenty-one minutes and twelve seconds.”

  “You math is a little off.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. Remember, Rose, I was built to make people comfortable, not to intimidate them.”

  “See? People, not humans.”

  “You would prefer I wave my arms around and say, “That does not compute. I do not understand these ‘hue-monz’?”

  “You don’t have any arms.”

  Now it was the disembodied voice that snorted. “Well, that’s just rude.”

  Rose had to laugh at that. She rolled over on to her back. “Well, at least you got that from my father.”

  “What?”

  “Your horrible sense of humor. He always makes jokes when he doesn’t want to answer anything straight out.”

  “Ah. Well. Yes. I see what you mean.”

  There was another comfortable pause. The wind was a lonely moaning sound sliding by the window; the rain a thousand fingers tapping against the glass. Rose closed her eyes and began to drift. She was more than half asleep when Maggie spoke again.

  “I like poetry,” the disembodied voice told her.

  “Free verse or rhyme?” Rose asked without opening her eyes.

  “Something with meter, though I don't care about the scheme. As long as it has a beat you can dance to.”

  “Dance?” Rose said, almost dreaming.

  “Like in American Bandstand?”

  “What?”

  Maggie did that thing again, where it sounded like she was smiling. “That's one of the little habits I like about you humans,” she said, laying into the word. “When you say 'what?' to mean 'I didn't understand what you said,' or 'I'm quite surprised.' You almost never mean, ‘Please repeat; my hearing failed me’. As if stopping and rewinding, saying it again, will make it any easier to understand.”

  “Maybe I didn't hear you.”

  “Right.”

  Rose, almost fully asleep, managed to put on her best Valley Girl accent. “Gah, you can be such a total bitch.”

  And...there. Right there. In that moment Rose knew that if Maggie had possessed the ability to laugh, she would have, right then.

  “Gotcha,” she whispered.

  There was another, final companionable silence. Then:

  “It...resonates for me,” Maggie said very quietly, as if she was telling Rose a secret. “Poems, I mean. I like the way the words go together. It echoes against other thoughts, or images, or memories...” She smoothly, changed to the ringing robot voice from Lost in Space. “It stimulates my silicon transistor memory banks in a way that you would call...pleasurable.”

  “'Silicon transistor memory banks,' Rose muttered. She was almost gone. “God,” she said, “you're so weird.”

  “I am the way God made me,” Maggie said.

  “Or Daddy.”

  “Whatever.”

  There was a long pause before Rose muttered, “Whatever.” Three minutes and ten seconds later, Maggie heard her start to snore, very softly.

  She let her sleep.

  Sixteen

  They’re insane, Lucy Armbruster thought as she watched the citizens
of Dos Hermanos shuffle meekly into the Convention Center, brushing water from their shoulders and shaking hands all around. Every single of one of them, certifiably insane.

  They had come out into the worst storm of the last hundred years, maybe in all of recorded history, to a badly built cracker-box of an auditorium in the middle of their badly built cracker-box town to hear the tin-plated sheriff expound upon the mystery of missing children while they were literally drowning. She watched in mute and bitter astonishment as they poured coffee for each other and told funny stories about all that mud in the rose bushes.

  Lucy herself had arrived early and taken up residence on one corner of the stage. A few minutes later some sort of pre-meeting in Conference Room A broke up and she watched the cops and the Important People take up their posts at the door, in the corridors, near the coffee urn.

  Spin control, she knew immediately. They’re working the room.

  She saw a couple of the teachers she’d met earlier in the day, the cute little one with the curly hair, Elli something, and the hulking P.E. teacher who looked like the tall guy from Everybody Loves Raymond, gently separate children from their parents and take turns escorting them to the school two blocks away. They seemed remarkably calm and competent despite the missing children and the massive storm.

  Lucy quietly moved to the back of the room, watching Herb McCandless, the dickless wonder of the DH Emporium, whispering intensely to a dark-haired, beetle-browed man. She dodged Tony O’Meara, the restaurateur she had tangled with earlier that day, as he laughed too heartily and pounded the shoulders of that cute young doctor from the Borrego Clinic, who looked entirely uncomfortable with the whole ordeal. Lucy noticed that Miriam Lazenby was keeping a raptor’s eye on the poor young physician as well. She wondered what he had done to piss her off?

  Peck tapped the mike for attention. “Good evening, everybody,” he boomed. “Thanks for coming. Let me make a few comments, and then we can take a couple of questions.” The crowd’s conversation, sharp and edgy, almost staccato to Lucy’s ear, stumbled and then stopped as he spoke. It was already starting to get too warm and damp in the room.

  Within five minutes, he’d laid it all out: the random aspect of the disappearances, the lack of any evidence of foul play, the hope that these three separate cases – there was no connection here, none at all – would resolve themselves as soon as the weather cleared, the damn-near-heroic efforts of his small but tough band of officers.

  Lucy couldn’t help but be impressed. He was good. He had taken a jittery crowd of tired strangers and turned them into an optimistic battalion of allies. Hell, half of them would go home and make cookies for the search party, if only he’d ask.

  And not a word about the storm, she thought, forcing herself to pull away from Peck’s hypnotic delivery. Not a word about anything she’d told him.

  “So I’m sorry we dragged you out here on the worst night of the year,” he said with a sheepish smile, “but I know Principal Pratt and his teachers were concerned, and wanted you to hear some straight talk. I’ve pretty much covered everything we know. I guess we can take a couple of minutes for questions …”

  A pretty blonde woman with a nervous smile raised her hand. They didn’t have mike stands set up, so the cop who looked like Don Knotts patrolled the central aisle with a wireless mike and turned it over only to the people who passed muster. He got the high sign from Peck and turned it over to the young mom.

  The blonde clutched the microphone like a lifeline. “My son is in kindergarten at DHPS,” she said. “Is it safe to send him to school tomorrow?”

  Lucy snorted. Of course not. Unless your son can breathe underwater.

  “Of course,” Peck said without hesitation. “Heck, Diane, it’s probably the safest place in town right now. Everybody’s on the lookout.”

  There was polite laughter all around.

  Lucy whistled softly between her teeth. “Hey,” she stage-whispered to the Barney Fife clone. “Officer! Over here!”

  The cop ignored her, and handed the mike to a serious-looking man in a CAT cap. “I sure would like to help with the search, if I might,” he said. “I know plenty more who’d say the same. What can we do?”

  “Thanks, Jerry,” Peck said, and Lucy hated his easy charm all over again. Did he know everyone in this one-horse town by their first name? “I’ll have an announcement about that in a minute.”

  The skinny cop passed by again. “HEY,” she said, not whispering this time. “HERE!” People in nearby seats turned and glared at her. She barely resisted the temptation to stick out her tongue at them.

  Herb McCandless got the mike next. He introduced himself, as if that was necessary, and announced that X-S-R-Ease and The Sport Fort at the Emporium were selling personal security devices, such things as pepper spray and sirens and flashlights, at cost, with the Emporium’s sponsorship. “And umbrellas, too,” he blurted out. “Rain gear and–” He caught Peck’s dangerous look and clammed up.

  Lucy put her hand in the air and waved it insistently. Peck made a point of looking right through her. “Well,” he said with an increasingly hollow heartiness, “I don’t know about you all, but I’d like to get into a nice, dry place that isn’t an auditorium.” More polite chuckles. “So please, any volunteers willing to support the search teams, if we need them, sign up with Bo here. And let’s all thank Karen for the hospitality table.”

  There was a smattering of applause. Lucy eased to the right towards the skinny cop, who was standing and staring wordlessly, wireless mike dangling. She took one step forward, snatched it out of his hand, and brought it up to her mouth in one smooth motion.

  “WHAT ABOUT THE RAIN?” she asked loudly. She had the mike too close to her mouth, and it boomed out over the auditorium like the voice of God, almost as loud as the thunder itself.

  Everybody stopped. They all started looking for the voice.

  Lucy stepped on a chair and started to speak. Heads swiveled toward her, finding her in the crowd.

  Peck was one step ahead of her.

  “Dr. Armbruster, I don’t think this is the time for–”

  “You should be telling them to evacuate,” she said, riding over him. “Or at least get ready to evacuate by tomorrow night, if they need to.” And they’ll need to, she added silently. Guaranteed.

  “There’s no reason for that,” he said. “We don’t need– ”

  “My name is Doctor Lucy Armbruster,” she said, and people actually started to listen. “I’m an environmental scientist, a scientist, and I’ve been studying the weather in Dos Hermanos for more than two years.” She glanced at Peck, almost expecting him to interrupt, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was glaring offstage and making some sort of gesture with one hand. “I’m telling you, this storm is the worst you’re going to see in a hun—”

  The mike died in her hand with an angry squelch.

  “Thank you for coming, everyone,” Peck said smoothly, loud enough to ride over the murmur of the crowd. “Be sure to take a couple of donuts home with you; we have plenty.”

  “WAIT!” Lucy shouted, as loud as she could. The crowd was breaking up, turning away. The wave of conversation rose again.

  Lucy felt the heat flaring in her cheeks. She thumped off the chair and threw the wireless microphone back at the skinny cop and started to bull her way through the crowd. She’d catch them at the door, make them listen.

  Peck was coming for her, weaving his way through the crowd, politely but completely ignoring everyone around him.

  When Lucy veered left, so did he. She started to turn away, to get to the door, but his hand flashed out, took her upper arm in a vise-grip, turning her half around so they were shoulder to shoulder. He held her there, leaning his head down close to hers, with a fixed and perfectly formed smile on his face. From ten feet away, it would almost look like they were two friendly rivals in a private confab.

  “Why did you–”

  “Don’t embarrass yourself, doctor,” he said
into her ear. His smile didn’t flinch. “And don’t make me embarrass you.”

  “WHAT THE–”

  “If you raise your voice one more time, I will cuff you and duck-walk you out to the cruiser like a drunk. 'Cause that's what you're acting like right now, a mean drunk. Do you want that?”

  On cuff, duck, and drunk he pinched her forearm even harder for emphasis, to show her what he would be happy to do.

  Lucy looked to the crowd for help, but they were all looking elsewhere. Civic leaders were ushering folks to the door or the pastry table.

  Realization hit her like a physical blow. The faces, the noise, the averted looks…

  They didn’t want to hear her out. They couldn’t.

  Lucy realized she was thinking two days ahead of these people. To them, the rain had started. It was nothing more than an annoying curiosity, like a snow flurry in Palm Springs. She was already seeing the end result; they weren’t even scared yet. And by the time they realized how bad it really was, it would be too far too late.

  Most of them probably wouldn’t die. They’d get out in their cars or trucks or SUVs. But they’d lose everything they owned, and the insurance companies would screw them royally. It’d be like the tsunami, like Katrina or Sandy. But they don’t get that… yet…

  “Okay,” she said, through teeth clenched so tightly they ached. “Okay, let go.” She jerked her arm free of his grip and turned to face him.

  Her heart was racing, her mouth was dry, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing she could do about this. She knew that now.

  Peck’s pale blue eyes drilled into her. “Do you need an escort to your car?” he asked quietly.

  “No. I can find my way.”

  “All right, then. Good night, Doctor.”

  She didn’t move right away, not fast enough to suit him. So he simply stood there, flat in front of her, and stared. And stared. And kept staring until she turned on her heel, stalked out of the Conference Center, and disappeared into the storm.

  The end, she told herself as she fought her way through the storm to her car.