'I don't have time to keep up with the talking heads.' Barbie could hear the shrug in Cox's voice. 'We're hopeful. We think we've got a shot. To coin a phrase.'
Julia was opening and closing her hands in a Wliat gives? gesture.
'Colonel Cox, I'm sitting here with four friends. One of them is a young man named Joe McClatchey, who's had a pretty cool idea. I'm going to put him on the phone with you right now - '
Joe was shaking his head hard enough to make his hair fly. Barbie paid no attention.
'-to explain it.'
And he handed Joe the cell. 'Talk,' he said.
'But - '
'Don't argue with the bull goose, son. Talk.'
Joe did so, diffidently at first, with a lot of ahs and erms and y'knows, but as his idea took hold of him again he sped up, became articulate. Then he listened. After a little while he started to grin. A few moments later he said, 'Yessir! Thank you, sir!' and handed the phone back to Barbie. 'Check it out, they're gonna try to augment our Wi-Fi before they shoot the missile! Jesus, this is hotV Julia grabbed his arm and Joe said, 'I'm sorry, Miz Shumway, I mean jeepers!
'Never mind that, can you really work this thing?'
'You kidding? No prob.'
'Colonel Cox?' Barbie asked. 'Is this true about the Wi-Fi?'
'We can't stop anything you folks want to try to do,' Cox said. 'I think you were the one who originally pointed that out to me. So we might as well help.You'll have the fastest Internet in the world, at least for today. That's some bright kid you got there, by the way.'
'Yes, sir, that was my impression,' Barbie said, and gave Joe a thumbs-up. The kid was glowing.
Cox said, 'If the boy's idea works and you record it, make sure we get a copy. We'll be making our own, of course, but the scientists in charge of this thing will want to see what the hit looks like from your side of the Dome.'
'I think we can do better than that,' Barbie said. 'If Joe here can put this together, I think most of the town will be able to watch it live.'
This time Julia raised her fist. Grinning, Barbie bumped it.
13
'Holee shit,' Joe said. The awe on his face made him look eight instead of thirteen. The whipcrack confidence was gone from his voice. He and Barbie were standing about thirty yards from where Little Bitch Road ran up against the Dome. It wasn't the soldiers he was looking at, although they had turned around to observe; it was the warning band and the big red X sprayed on the Dome that had fascinated him.
'They're moving their bivouac point, or whatever you call it,' Julia said. 'The tents are gone.'
'Sure. In about' - Barbie looked at his watch - 'ninety minutes, it's going to get very hot over there. Son, you better get to it.' But now that they were actually out here on the deserted road, Barbie began to wonder if Joe could do what he had promised.
'Yeah, but... do you see the trees?'
Barbie didn't understand at first. He looked at Julia, who shrugged. Then Joe pointed, and he saw. The trees on the Tarker's side of the Dome were dancing in a moderate fall wind, shedding leaves in colorful bursts that fluttered down around the watching Marine sentries. On The Mill side, the branches were barely moving and most of the trees were still fully dressed. Barbie was pretty sure air was coming through the barrier, but not with any force. The Dome was damping the wind. He thought of how he and Paul Gendron, the guy in the Sea Dogs cap, had come to the little stream and had seen the water piling up.
Julia said, 'The leaves over here look... I don't know... listless, somehow. Limp.'
'It's just because they've got a wind on their side and we've only got a puff of breeze,' Barbie said, then wondered if that was really it. Or all of it. But what good did it do to speculate about the current air quality in Chester's Mill, when there was nothing they could do about it? 'Go on, Joe. Do your thing.'
They had swung by the McClatchey house in Julia's Prius to get Joe's PowerBook. (Mrs McClatchey had made Barbie swear he would keep her son safe, and Barbie had so sworn.) Now Joe pointed at the road. 'Here?'
Barbie raised his hands to the sides of his face and sighted at the red X. 'Little to the left. Can you try it? See how it looks?'
'^eah.' Joe opened the PowerBook and turned it on. The Mac power-up chime sounded as pretty as ever, but Barbie thought he had never seen anything quite so surreal as the silver computer sitting on the patched asphalt of Little Bitch Road with its screen up. It seemed to summarize the last three days perfectly.
'Battery's fresh, so it should run for at least six hours,' Joe said.
'Won't it go to sleep?'Julia asked.
Joe gave her an indulgent Mother, please look. Then he turned back to Barbie. 'If the missile roasts my Pro, do you promise to buy me another one?'
'Uncle Sam will buy you another one,' Barbie promised. 'I'll put in the requisition myself.'