“Look at those clouds.” He sounded faintly awed. Becks and I exchanged a glance, tilted our heads back, and looked.
Growing up in California meant George and I never really experienced that much in the way of what most people would consider “weather.” We got more in the way of “climate.” Still, even California gets rained on, and I know what a cloud looks like when it’s getting ready to storm in earnest. The clouds forming overhead were blacker than any that I’d ever seen, hanging low in the sky and visibly heavy with rain. They were coming together at a disturbing rate. The sky wasn’t exactly clear when we pulled off, but it hadn’t been anything like this.
Becks whistled low. “That is some storm,” she said.
“Yeah, and we get to drive in it.” I opened the van door. “As long as we don’t get washed away, this could actually work in our favor. If that sucker comes down as hard as it looks like it’s going to, we’re gonna be a bitch to track.”
“Saved by the storm,” said Mahir. “I suppose it’s true that stranger things have happened.”
Becks rolled her eyes. “I hate to be the one to get all negative on you two, but we’re in Kansas, and we’re planning to be in Kansas for hours. Isn’t this where Dorothy was when that whole ‘twister ride to Oz’ thing happened? Does either of you know how to recognize a tornado? Because I don’t. It might be a good idea for us to find a motel and hole up until this blows over.”
I shook my head. “That might be the smart thing to do, but it’s not an option. If the CDC is following us, they’re going to expect us to wait out the storm. This could be the best shot we have at getting clear.” Becks still looked unconvinced. I didn’t blame her; I wasn’t entirely convinced myself. “Look, we’ll keep the weather advisory running on Mahir’s phone. It’s a nonspecific enough program that no one should be able to use it to track us, and if it starts flashing ‘Get off the road, assholes,’ we’ll pull off until the storm passes. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, slowly. “But if we get blown to Oz, I’m going to drop a house on your ass.”
“See, that’s the sort of compromise I can live with.” I got into the van. Becks and ir did the same.
You really sure this is the right plan? asked George.
“Absolutely not,” I muttered, and started the engine.
We backed out of the rest area a little at a time. Once we were on the road, Mahir got out to close the gate, Becks covering him with her rifle the whole time. The highway was clear in all directions. What travelers we might have had to deal with were clearly all smarter than we were and had chosen to get out of the path of the oncoming storm. The van shuddered as the wheels left the cracked pavement of the rest area entrance for the smooth, well-maintained asphalt of U.S. 400, running west, toward California.
The light faded out a little bit at a time, until I was driving with the lights on in what should have been the middle of the day. The wind picked up as the light slipped away, and the flatness of Kansas offered no real shelter. The van rattled and fought against me until I was forced to slow to forty miles an hour, Mahir still tapping away in the front passenger seat. Becks stayed crouched in the back with her rifle in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other, munching as she watched out the window. As long as it kept her awake, I really didn’t care what she wanted to do. I was going to need her to take over driving duties before too much longer, at least if we wanted to get out of this storm without smashing the van by the side of the road.
Kansas stretched out in front of us like a bleak alien landscape, the shadows cast by the clouds turning everything strange. I turned the radio on just to break the silence, pushed down the gas a little more, and drove onward, into the dark.
We didn’t know. There was nothing we could have done, and we didn’t know. You can’t shoot the wind. You can’t argue with the clouds. There was nothing, nothing we could have done to stop the storm, and even if there had been, we didn’t know. There was no fucking way for us to know. Nothing like that had ever happened before, and we didn’t know.
It wasn’t our fault. And if I say that enough times, maybe I’ll start believing it. Oh, fuck.
It wasn’t our fault. We didn’t know.
Oh, God, we didn’t know.
—From Adaptive Immunities, the blog of Shaun Mason, June 24, 2041. Unpublished.
Twenty-two
We crossed Kansas on the leading edge of the storm, chasing the light until the sun went down and we were driving in darkness s