A Better World (22 page)

An hour later, there were dozens. Each group walked apart from the others, strung along the road like beads on a necklace. Most had flashlights and made no effort to conceal them. Some talked. Up ahead, someone sang “Auld Lang Syne.”

“I love that song,” Amy said.

“I know.”

“Kinda fitting, huh?” She broke into soft song. “
We two have run about the slopes, and picked the daisies fine; but we’ve wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne
.”

“My feet are weary,” he acknowledged.

They were passing a development suburb, one of those strange neighborhoods in a box plunked down in the middle of nowhere. A dozen houses were under construction, the steepled framework dark against the sky. There was a sign by the entrance he could just make out: T
HE BEST OF NATURE WITH THE MOST MODERN CONVENIENCES
. D
REAM HOMES STARTING IN THE LOW THREE HUNDREDS!
Next to it was a completed model home, and Ethan
saw a man standing on the front porch, watching the slow trail of refugees. He nodded at the guy but got no response. Out in the woods, a bird shrieked. The sound was unmistakably predatory, and Ethan wondered what had just died. A mouse, maybe, clutched in the talons of an owl.

“ ‘For auld lang syne’ means ‘for the sake of olden times.’ ” Amy’s voice was soft. “I wonder if that’s our life. Olden times.”

Ethan glanced sideways, caught by the sadness in his wife’s voice. She wasn’t one of those aggressively cheery people, but overall, Amy saw the existence of the glass itself as pretty amazing, whether half-full or half-empty. More than what had happened to their city, to their neighborhood, more than the terrorism or the riots, more than becoming refugees, that note in his wife’s voice brought home the weight of circumstances. Not just what was happening to them, but what was happening to the world.

He flashed back to something he’d heard on the radio the night the supermarkets had been stripped. The guy had been talking about the way stores were supplied, how everything happened in real time. Ethan could imagine the system to make that work, the scanners and computers and inventory management and logistics and shipping. Just one of a million plans that kept the world turning, a scheme as intricate and efficient as the vascular system that supplied a human being with blood.

But for all the efficiency of the vascular system, cut an artery and the body died.

Is that what the Children of Darwin had done? Was it possible that the madness engulfing Cleveland would spread, that power would fail widely, that food wouldn’t move from farm to store, that the police wouldn’t protect nor the hospitals heal?

Could life be so delicate?

You know that it can.
The world worked because people agreed to believe it worked. He could hand a piece of paper to a clerk and walk out with clothing because they agreed to ascribe value to the paper. He could interact with people thousands of miles away and
call it chatting. The d-pad in his pocket could access the sum total of accumulated human knowledge, from setting a bone to building an A-bomb.

And none of that was real. It was a shared and beneficial hallucination.

What happens when we can’t believe anymore?

“Everything will work out.”

“You don’t have to keep saying that for me,” she said sharply. “I don’t need to be managed.”

He started to protest, caught himself. “You’re right. Sorry.”

She softened, said, “Me too. Just tired.”

“Yeah. Your mom’s pullout couch never sounded so—” He broke off and stopped moving.

“What is it?”

“Do you hear . . .”

Engines. The sound, faint at first, grew rapidly louder. The night was quiet; they should have been able to hear a car for miles. Instead, it was as though . . .

As though they had been parked and waiting.

“Run!” Ethan grabbed Amy’s hand and pulled her off the road. Others had heard the sound too, and their flashlights whirled as they scattered, spots of brightness and blurs of color. The heavy pack bounced on his shoulders, and talons of fire clutched his knee as they sprinted up the entrance to the complex.

Humvees ripped around a bend in the road, their mounted spotlights turning night to day. A voice boomed over a loudspeaker, the words lost in screams and the roar of engines. Ethan didn’t waste any time trying to listen, just made for the cover of the model home, Amy half a step behind. His heart thumped his ribs as they pounded up the gravel drive and slid into shadow against the wall.

Violet had woken and was crying, and Amy’s face was pinched as she murmured, “Shh, no, not now, please, shh.”

Now what?

Peering around the edge of the building, he could see that the Humvees had split up, one holding the base of the road, two others swinging out to corral the refugees. The swiveling spotlights were blinding, and people froze in their beams.

“Do not run. We will fire. Get down on your knees and put your hands on your head.”

Would they really shoot? He didn’t know. If the government actually believed they might be terrorists, or infected with something . . . it was possible.

On the road, people were complying, setting down packs and blankets, kneeling on the blacktop. As the spotlights swung back and forth, they framed the huddled figures in light, throwing twisted shadows.

“Dr. Ethan Park. A drone has identified you on this road.”

His mouth fell open, and icy panic drenched his body. His hands tingled and itched.

A
drone
?!

Why in the name of everything holy would a drone be looking for him? Why would anyone?

“Put your hands on your head and walk slowly toward the vehicles, Dr. Park.”

“What?” Amy’s eyes were white with reflected light. “Why do they want us?”

He flashed back to the DAR agents who had come to see him, Bobby Quinn and Valerie West. The two of them asking about his research.
That can’t be. It’s silly.
“I really don’t know.”

“Should we turn ourselves in?”

He peered back around the edge of the house. Soldiers had dismounted the trucks, transforming the cheerful column into a huddle of terrified prey.

Near the middle, one man was still standing. It was the one they’d seen before, wearing flannels and carrying a rifle. His son knelt on one side of him, his wife on the other, her hands tugging his pant leg. Instead, he reached down and pulled her to her feet.

“Put your hands on your head, Dr. Park.”

“I’m not him,” the man yelled back. “We’re not him.”

“Get down on your knees.”

“I’m an American citizen. And I am not going back to Cleveland.” He started forward, ignoring his wife pulling at him.

“Sir! Get down on your knees, now!”

“We’re not who you’re looking for.”

“Drop the weapon and get down on your goddamn knees!”

“I have rights,” the man shouted. “I’m not a terrorist. You can’t do this.”

“Stop, you idiot,” Ethan whispered. “Get
down
.”

The man took one step, and then another.

A short series of detonations, flashes of brilliant light and booms that ricocheted through Ethan’s stomach like fireworks, only that couldn’t be, fireworks were in the sky, not on the road, and then the hunter’s back exploded.

For a second, the only sound was the echo of the gun blasts reverberating through the trees. Then the screaming started.

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” Amy said, “ohmygod.”

People were standing now, starting to run. The loudspeaker boomed again, told everyone to stop, but hysteria had replaced fear. Ethan had a terrible image of the guns opening fire, strafing the crowd, but it was the spotlights instead, the soldiers hopping off the trucks and yelling.

Ethan grabbed Amy’s arm, squeezed hard. The woods were—

A sudden tapping sound made him jump. His first thought was that he’d been shot, but there was no pain, and the sound was too quiet.

It was the window of the model home, the one they were hiding behind. A woman held a flashlight in one hand as she opened the window with the other. “Quick,” she said, with a
come here
gesture.

He looked at her, a stranger in a tank top, her face twisted with urgency. Ethan grabbed Violet, pressed her into the woman’s
arms, and then half boosted, half shoved Amy through the window. He gripped the edge of the windowsill and pulled himself up and over, the backpack making it awkward.

More gunfire sounded on the road.

The woman turned out to be named Margaret, and she was the wife of the guy Ethan had seen on the front porch, who now put out his hand. “Jeremy.”

The five of them were in the basement of the model home, a finished space designed to be a family room, though at the moment it held just a couple of folding chairs and a conference table. Outside, the loudspeakers boomed commands. He could imagine the scene, people being rounded up and zip-tied, loaded onto trucks. The soldiers would be ID’ing each of them, looking for him.

But why?

He didn’t know. Maybe it was the DAR; maybe it was whoever kidnapped Abe; maybe it was a mistake. Regardless, it seemed best not to be the name read over the loudspeakers. Hoping his wife would pick up on what he was doing, Ethan said, “I’m Will.” His middle name. “My wife Amy. And this is Violet.”

Amy didn’t miss a beat as she said, “Thank you for letting us in.”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Margaret shook her head. “I don’t know what those boys were up to, shooting at people, but I couldn’t let you stay out there. Not with the little one.” She cooed down at Violet, now back in Amy’s arms. “My lord, she’s precious.”

“You think the soldiers will search the house?”

Jeremy shook his head. “Wouldn’t think so. The doors and windows are locked, so no reason for them to think people are here.”

“We’re sort of caretakers,” Margaret said. “Watch over the place, make sure kids don’t come out to party, that kind of thing.”

Ethan said, “We won’t stay long. Just until they leave.”

“Nonsense. We’ve got plenty of room. It’s too late at night to be wandering around, especially with those soldiers all wound up.”

“You know the guy they were looking for?” Jeremy asked.

“No. We didn’t know any of those people. Just trying to get out of town, go stay with Amy’s mom in Chicago.”

Jeremy swiveled a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. They seemed to have run out of things to say, and in the silence, a Humvee engine revved. They all listened, heads cocked, as the sound grew fainter.

“We’ve got some food,” Ethan said. “It’s not much, but are you guys hungry?”

It was the strangest Thanksgiving he could remember, although there was something wonderful about it, too. Margaret and Amy worked together over the camp stove, heating cans, while he and Jeremy set the table. Paper plates and plasticware, a Coleman lantern in the center of the table. The man wasn’t much of a talker, but Ethan learned that they had two kids upstairs—“boys’d sleep through Judgment Day”—and that Jeremy also worked as an electrician, wiring the housing development.

Dinner was an odd mix: Campbell’s soup, black beans, jerky, peanut butter sandwiches. They all held hands as Jeremy said grace, and then everyone tucked in. Margaret kept up a steady stream of talk, all of it pleasantly inane. The food tasted better than it had a right to, and there were moments when Ethan forgot that they were huddled in a basement on the outskirts of a paralyzed city under terrorist attack and hunted by drones.

Afterward, while Amy checked on Violet and Margaret cleaned up, Jeremy cocked his head at Ethan in a
come with me
gesture. They went out to the front porch. The street was abandoned, no sign of the chaos that had taken place just hours ago. Almost no sign: Ethan thought he could see a dark stain on the concrete.

Amy was right. The life we knew was olden times.

“Listen, I want to thank you again,” Ethan said. “You saved us there.”

Jeremy nodded. “Wife’s got a big heart.”

“So do you. Thanks.”

The man stepped off the porch and reached behind a drain pipe. He came out with a pint bottle of whiskey, unscrewed the cap and took a pull, then sighed. “Margaret doesn’t like it, but sometimes a man needs a drink.”