He added that the hard rain was doing things no fulgurite had ever done before. Instead of drizzling down mixed with rain, it absorbed water, using every bit of moisture it could get to power its growth. It didn’t require lightning to turn to crystal; any old static electricity would do.
Wolf Blitzer said it was raining nails outside Wichita and asked his pet chemist if it was the same cloud that had rained nails on Boulder. The chemist shook his head. He said there might be a million grains of this stuff in the upper stratosphere and that it would collect in clouds like any kind of dust. Some would fall in needles and pins. Others would grow a bit, then fragment and break up, creating new grains of crystal to infect future cloud systems. Wolf asked him what that meant in simple terms. The chemist pushed his glasses up his nose and said that for all practical purposes this might become a permanent part of the global weather cycle. This new, synthetic crystal fulgurite was self-perpetuating, and it was in the atmosphere now. He said they’d need to do some modeling, but it was possible it might eventually make every rain cloud on earth into a farm for crystal. He called that the “Vonnegut scenario.” That eventually ordinary rain might be a thing of the past.
That was when Wolf seemed to forget that the cameras were pointing at him. He just stood there, looking sick. After a moment he stammered that they were going to turn to the events unfolding in Wichita, and he cautioned parents against letting children watch.
Until then Ursula had been bent over the sink, briskly scrubbing out cups and pans and setting them to dry in the dish rack. But when she heard that bit, she told me, softly, it might be best to shut off the laptop and save the battery, and I knew she wanted to spare Templeton the sight of any more slaughter.
I joined her at the sink and began to towel off wet glasses. In a low voice, I told her, “Elder Bent says the world is going to end this fall. I think the scientist on CNN just agreed with him. I feel sick. Everything is terrible, and I don’t know what to do.”
Ursula was quiet for a while, sponging the waffle iron. Then she said, “In the days after Charlie died, I’d never felt so alone or scared or helpless. There is nothing that makes a person feel worse than helplessness. I was so angry I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t have him back. I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t rewind what had happened and change it. I understand how you feel, Honeysuckle. I’ve already visited the lost and lonely place at the end of the world, and all I know is, the only way to keep going is to do the things the people you loved would’ve wanted you to do. Try to imagine how Yolanda would’ve wanted you to use the time you’ve got left. That’s the one way to keep her close. If you’re scared and sick and can’t think how to live for your own self, try to think how you can live for her. You won’t feel helpless anymore. You’ll know just what to do.”
When she ran out of words, she gave the top of my head a twitchy pat, like a person who’s nervous about being snapped at might pet a big, strange dog. It was lousy affection, but I knew it took a lot for her to even try, and I appreciated it. Besides, she had let me in far enough to show me a glimpse of her own pain, and an act such as that requires more courage than giving someone a hug.
She asked if I’d mind Templeton for a bit while she raked up the nails in her yard. I sat in the garage and watched the kid standing on a bucket of rock salt, banging the keys of the big iron manual typewriter, just about the only thing his father had left behind for him. I sat under his daddy’s framed Ph.D. from Cornell; Templeton was the direct descen dent of jumpy, pasty geniuses, people more comfortable with microbes on glass slides than with other human beings. I was unclear whether Charlie Blake had died by accident or on purpose, taking his car through a guardrail and down into a canyon after a couple of drinks. Yolanda had gone with Ursula to identify the body while I stayed behind to watch Templeton. Yolanda told me later that Charlie had only just been fired. His company was moving somewhere down south, and they were taking his research and all his best ideas with them but not him. All he got for a decade of work was a handshake and a gold iPad. The accident had smashed his skull down into his brain, but that iPad had been salvaged from the car crash with nary a scratch on it. Ursula gave it to Yolanda; Ursula couldn’t bear to look at it.
I sat while Templeton banged at the keys, and I tried to think what Yolanda would’ve wanted me to do. I had about 30 percent charge left on my phone and used it to try her father again. This time I didn’t even get voice mail. I walked to the open garage door. A mile of blue sky stretched above the Rockies, nothing in it but a few fat, scattered islands of cloud.
Ursula stood in the middle of her lawn, leaning on her rake, studying me. At her feet was a small mound of glittering crystal shards.
“What are you thinking about?” Ursula asked.
“Do you think it’s going to rain?”
“Might be a sprinkle later,” she told me cautiously.
“I was thinking I should go see Dr. Rusted. That’s Yolanda’s father. Someone needs to let him know what happened to his daughter. Easier for me to go to him than for him to come to me. He’s sixty-four and not exactly a triathlete.”
“Where’s he live?”
“Denver.”
“How were you planning to get there?”
“I guess I’d have to walk. No one is driving anywhere. The roads are full of nails.”
“You know it’s thirty miles?”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s why I was thinking if I’m going to go, it better be soon. If I left in the next hour, I could be back by tomorrow night.”
“You also could be dead by tomorrow night, if you get caught out in another downpour.”
I scratched my neck. “Well. I’d keep a close watch on the sky and head for cover if it darkened up any.”
Ursula clenched the handle of her rake and thought for a bit, frowning to herself.
“I’m not your mother,” she said at last. “So I can’t forbid you to go. But I want you to text me regularly to keep me up to date on your progress. And when you get back, you’re going to come straight here and show Templeton you’re all right, so he won’t worry about you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I wish I had a gun to give you.”
“Why?” I said, genuinely surprised.
“Because law will be stretched thin, and there’s a whole city of terrified people out there. Folks woke up today to a poisoned world, and some of them won’t see any reason to hold back on doing the awful things they’ve always dreamed of.” She thought some more and then lifted her eyebrows. “I have a big rusty machete you could take. I keep it around for hacking the brush.”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “If I got into a fight, I’d be just as likely to miss and whack it into my own knee as hit someone. You better hold on to it. I’ll keep to the main roads. I don’t think in the bright of day there’ll be much to worry about.”