So many like her had indeed died, so ill-suited to be hunters—at times hunters of other men—or gatherers and sowers. Samantha was the luxury of an advanced technological age that so many like her had actually created. A world that all others once lived off of, even though they did not understand the hows or whys, but would curse if their sixty-inch flat screen hooked to a satellite dish went on the blink during a Super Bowl, or news of what some star had done that day to further titillate a society even as it headed to the brink of disaster and then fell.
The “nerds in the basement,” which too many once mocked—even while dependent upon them for their jobs, their entertainment, and indeed their very lives when it came to the infrastructure—had been held in mocking disdain by far too many. Little did anyone realize their importance until the moment everyone was brought to their knees in sharp flashes of nuclear light far above the atmosphere.
“All right, it stays as it is. Now tell me your goals,” John said.
Ernie, seeing that John’s hand was no longer covering his glass, poured him a few more ounces, and for once John did not resist. Linda and Ernie were running the show for the moment, and he realized it was time to just listen and perhaps relax a bit.
“Something is about to happen,” Linda announced. “Ernie and I worked in our fields for about fifty years. Good years with NASA, IBM, and then our own business with the satellite antennas. We were good because we learned to have a gut feel for things at times and stay a jump ahead of the game.”
“What she is trying to say—” Ernie started to interject.
“Damn it, Ernie, I know what I am about to say,” she snapped, and John could not help but smile. Ernie might intimidate most folks in town, but in this house, he could see it was an open fight at times, and at times Linda won. “We knew Apollo would work, but the shuttle was an insane design. Putting a manned crew atop solid rocket boosters that could not be turned off once lit, the way a liquid engine could be shut down, was asking for disaster. We and others warned and were ignored. We along with others tried to point out the fatal flaw of the insulation coating in the liquid fuel tank as well. It might just be spray-on foam, but if a piece the size of a kitchen counter snapped off and struck a wing during liftoff, it could prove fatal. The math was simple; regardless of mass, it was about velocity at impact that counted. Again we were ignored, and then we watched in horror as Columbia broke up on reentry because of that exact reason.”
She was digressing from the discussion of the moment, but he let her continue, knowing she was reaching toward a significant point and expressing frustrations that still haunted her.
“IBM was going to miss the boat with the PC market. We tried to tell the management idiots in business suits that. Their reply? No one really wanted a computer in their house but would rely on them to provide big mainframe systems, run of course by IBM people in white jackets. Of course that meant all of America would pay to be able to dial in and pay yet another fee via old AT&T to hook in to our machines. I remember them pitching that in one of their World of Tomorrow programs at a world’s fair. So here we are in the world of tomorrow,” she said with a sigh.
She gestured back to the room where the students were working. “They just might crack something, and it might mean the difference between our surviving or not. Your friend the general was giving you a warning. He is going to come down on us. He wants it to be without bloodshed, but regardless, he has his orders already. But what are the orders? Not just against us but long term. He didn’t say anything about what that poor dying fellow … what was his name?”
“Quentin.”
“What that poor man said about an EMP. And your friend didn’t reply. Why?”
“I think he isn’t sure himself,” John replied, hoping that was the real reason, and not because he was already aware of some plan and going along with it.
“Then let’s find out.”
John downed the rest of the drink Ernie had poured for him, and it did go to his head. It was a welcome relief. He realized Linda was right. Something was coming, and unlike the threat of the Posse, or even Fredericks who showed his hand, before he fully struck, this time he just was not sure what the hell was about to happen next.
“And something else is worrying me, John.”
“What is it?”
“You. The general was giving you a personal warning as well. I pray for you every day, and that prayer now includes that you take heed of his warning.”
John smiled but said nothing.
“Be careful, John, very careful.”
“Of course,” he said, trying not to sound dismissive. “And okay. You win. Put them to it, and while you do, you feed and house them. Is that all right with you two?”
Linda smiled. “You see, Ernie? I knew he’d see it our way.”
“Five extra mouths to feed.” Ernie sighed. “Sure we can’t draw some rations for them, John?”
“Five, I only saw three in that room.”
“There’s two more up on the roof installing another ten-foot-wide satellite dish we salvaged yesterday from a trailer down near Old Fort.”
As John had already conceded who fed and housed the students, there was no sense in arguing about two more and he let it go.
“Those things will be damn visible on your roof,” John ventured.
“Don’t worry, we already thought of that,” Linda replied. “They’re screened with some camouflage made from bedsheets to blend in with the snow covering our roof.”
John shook his head. If anything, he was feeling a twinge of guilt over the kids like Samantha. Until the realization that there were at least some computers capable of being restored, put back online, and then turned to a useful, perhaps crucial purpose, kids like her had languished, no longer fitting in. And without doubt, more than a few of them had died in this harsh new world. If they again had purpose—perhaps a crucial purpose—then he felt at this moment their society had at least taken yet another small step out of the darkness.
“I think you Franklins have more than enough rations to go around for five extra mouths, at least until the next harvest starts to come in.”
Ernie barely cracked a smile. “Be prepared, John. If all of us had thought that way, we wouldn’t be counting every bean or ear of corn and calculating if we should throw them to a pig or eat them ourselves. Yeah, we can feed them.”
“Point taken,” was all John could say.
“Fine, then. Now, I’ve got a stew ready to ladle out. You and Maury stay. Agreed?”