"c303" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)

1:27 P.M., Friday, March 3, 2000
Cheyenne, Wyoming

"I don't care who you are or where you live," the National Guardsman said, his automatic rifle not entirely pointed away from Nate. "The City of Cheyenne isn't letting anyone in." "But I-25 is a federal highway! You can't shut it down." Nate had heard it all before, from Bangor, Montpelier, Montreal (which had been scary, since he hadn't really wanted to cross back into Canada), Albany, Birmingham, Syracuse, Ottawa. The bluster about federal highways worked once, in Albany, where it had saved his ass from having to backtrack up to Montreal. Not that it had mattered. He'd tried to wind his way around Montpelier by back roads, but came to fully understand the meaning of "you can't get there from here." He'd vowed to stick to main highways ever after if possible, but that still meant he'd had to head north into Montreal before he could go south again to Albany. Main highways were fine any direction you wanted to go, so long as it was North. The guards at the southern edges of any city figured if you were heading north, toward the cold rather than away, you must have real business in town, and were generally able to be talked into passing you through. No fool wanted to visit Montreal when the power was out if you'd been coming from someplace balmy, like Montpelier. But try the reverse, coming at Syracuse from the east, say, and Canadian license plates or no, they figured you were a Refugee Looter Psycho. At several cities he'd heard a similar, and disturbing story. Power had come back on in Birmingham for a while, then gone out again. Ottawa's main water treatment facility had worked into mid-February, then quit. Albany's natural gas system had been on and off during January, but went out for good in early February. Things that had once worked were quitting. Entropy was setting in. Nate worried it might take longer to restart civilization than he'd thought. People were getting disheartened. If folks kept slipping down every time they tried to stand up... It had to turn around; it just had to. Besides information, Nate had gotten crude maps from a few friendly folks, enough to navigate around closed cities back to the highways, but nobody would guide him south. North, no problem. So Nate found himself back in Canada, on the very same Transcanada highway he'd wanted to avoid, figuring that's the first place the CyberCorps MPs would look for a programmer gone Mitnick. But save the wind and blowing snow, nobody hassled him. The smaller towns merely closed off their few exits and funneled traffic right on through, thank you very much. When he could find a phone, he tried calling the house. "All circuits are busy" was the common refrain. Or no dial tone. Or ringing, then clicking dead. At least it had been a straight shot from Ottawa to Winnipeg. He'd resigned himself that he couldn't circumvent Youngstown, Akron, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City and Topeka, plus the myriad of other towns in between whose size and therefore likelihood of rerouting him he couldn't tell from the one page highway map he'd found in a rest stop trash can. Going north of the great lakes had been damned cold, but he'd saved days, if not his life. After Winnipeg he'd hit U.S. 85, not to be confused with a real interstate, and picked his way down through North and South Dakota, sliding down the eastern side of Wyoming, and finally dumping him into Cheyenne. Barely a stone's throw from the Colorado border, Nate couldn't see any obvious way of looping around and home. I-25, if he could just get through Cheyenne, would take him right into Denver without trouble. He'd be denied entry there around 120th Avenue, he figured, or maybe 160th, but he could ferret out rural roads down to Agate from there. Unlike back east, most of them out here ran straight as a grid. "Back it up," the soldier said. "Harve Johnston said I could mention his name to get through," he bluffed. "That's Johnston with a 't'." It had worked at some small town whose name he couldn't remember in Ontario, though he'd chosen a more Canadian sounding name there. "Back it up!" "But, I can't backtrack all the way to Torrington. I'm low on gas," he pleaded, which was almost the truth. He'd used up more than he'd liked running the car's heater every few hours at night when he slept; he'd collected a far more impressive stack than he'd liked of IOU's he'd promised to repay gas stations whose pumps he'd broken into at night and pumped manually. He did have enough gas to steal home, but maybe he'd pluck a heartstring here. "You don't want my freezing to death on your conscience, now do you?" "I got a lot worse on my conscience, buddy. Now back it up." Nate had to comply. He went north up U.S. 85 a ways, until he found a friendly looking rancher with a flat tire. Helping him with his tire earned him a rough map of some gravel roads that would take him into Colorado without much extra mileage. Besides, it worked off a bit of the good samaritan debt he'd accumulated, which had become quite sizable in his mind. Through tiny burgs of Burns, and Carpenter, and Hereford, Briggsdale, Fosston, Cornish, Barnesville and Lucerne, he worked his way toward Greeley. Who wouldn't let him in—coming from The North and all—and routed him back eastward, where he snuck through Kersey, Kuner and Masters before hitting I-76. A genuine interstate! Even if only a two-lane, it was such a relief after plunging through snow banks and bumping along ice-rutted roads. As he inched closer, his thoughts turned again to Amber. He hoped, imagined, prayed she'd be waiting for him. A cozy fire blazing. The others would clear out, give them privacy. He'd break into the secret stash of wine he hadn't told Russ about. The house was dark when he pulled up shortly past nine that night. He fleetingly thought they'd finally gotten the message about cutting the power at night, but the scarcity of cars squelched that. The headlights reflected off only a rusty old truck Nate tinkered with and one of the Suburban Squad. As he walked up, however, he could see his worst gut fear was realized. Windows were broken in, and at least a recent snow had drifted through them. The heat was obviously not working. Nor the lights. In the reflected moonlight he could see the inside was trashed. Whatever had held value had been stolen; the rest, destroyed. The TV in the main room lay smashed on the floor, electronics radiating outward like a dissected heart. It smelled of mildew and rancid beer. Nate sank to the floor. "You maniacs! You blew it up!" he sobbed. "God damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

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Chapter 30.3

1:27 P.M., Friday, March 3, 2000
Cheyenne, Wyoming

"I don't care who you are or where you live," the National Guardsman said, his automatic rifle not entirely pointed away from Nate. "The City of Cheyenne isn't letting anyone in." "But I-25 is a federal highway! You can't shut it down." Nate had heard it all before, from Bangor, Montpelier, Montreal (which had been scary, since he hadn't really wanted to cross back into Canada), Albany, Birmingham, Syracuse, Ottawa. The bluster about federal highways worked once, in Albany, where it had saved his ass from having to backtrack up to Montreal. Not that it had mattered. He'd tried to wind his way around Montpelier by back roads, but came to fully understand the meaning of "you can't get there from here." He'd vowed to stick to main highways ever after if possible, but that still meant he'd had to head north into Montreal before he could go south again to Albany. Main highways were fine any direction you wanted to go, so long as it was North. The guards at the southern edges of any city figured if you were heading north, toward the cold rather than away, you must have real business in town, and were generally able to be talked into passing you through. No fool wanted to visit Montreal when the power was out if you'd been coming from someplace balmy, like Montpelier. But try the reverse, coming at Syracuse from the east, say, and Canadian license plates or no, they figured you were a Refugee Looter Psycho. At several cities he'd heard a similar, and disturbing story. Power had come back on in Birmingham for a while, then gone out again. Ottawa's main water treatment facility had worked into mid-February, then quit. Albany's natural gas system had been on and off during January, but went out for good in early February. Things that had once worked were quitting. Entropy was setting in. Nate worried it might take longer to restart civilization than he'd thought. People were getting disheartened. If folks kept slipping down every time they tried to stand up... It had to turn around; it just had to. Besides information, Nate had gotten crude maps from a few friendly folks, enough to navigate around closed cities back to the highways, but nobody would guide him south. North, no problem. So Nate found himself back in Canada, on the very same Transcanada highway he'd wanted to avoid, figuring that's the first place the CyberCorps MPs would look for a programmer gone Mitnick. But save the wind and blowing snow, nobody hassled him. The smaller towns merely closed off their few exits and funneled traffic right on through, thank you very much. When he could find a phone, he tried calling the house. "All circuits are busy" was the common refrain. Or no dial tone. Or ringing, then clicking dead. At least it had been a straight shot from Ottawa to Winnipeg. He'd resigned himself that he couldn't circumvent Youngstown, Akron, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City and Topeka, plus the myriad of other towns in between whose size and therefore likelihood of rerouting him he couldn't tell from the one page highway map he'd found in a rest stop trash can. Going north of the great lakes had been damned cold, but he'd saved days, if not his life. After Winnipeg he'd hit U.S. 85, not to be confused with a real interstate, and picked his way down through North and South Dakota, sliding down the eastern side of Wyoming, and finally dumping him into Cheyenne. Barely a stone's throw from the Colorado border, Nate couldn't see any obvious way of looping around and home. I-25, if he could just get through Cheyenne, would take him right into Denver without trouble. He'd be denied entry there around 120th Avenue, he figured, or maybe 160th, but he could ferret out rural roads down to Agate from there. Unlike back east, most of them out here ran straight as a grid. "Back it up," the soldier said. "Harve Johnston said I could mention his name to get through," he bluffed. "That's Johnston with a 't'." It had worked at some small town whose name he couldn't remember in Ontario, though he'd chosen a more Canadian sounding name there. "Back it up!" "But, I can't backtrack all the way to Torrington. I'm low on gas," he pleaded, which was almost the truth. He'd used up more than he'd liked running the car's heater every few hours at night when he slept; he'd collected a far more impressive stack than he'd liked of IOU's he'd promised to repay gas stations whose pumps he'd broken into at night and pumped manually. He did have enough gas to steal home, but maybe he'd pluck a heartstring here. "You don't want my freezing to death on your conscience, now do you?" "I got a lot worse on my conscience, buddy. Now back it up." Nate had to comply. He went north up U.S. 85 a ways, until he found a friendly looking rancher with a flat tire. Helping him with his tire earned him a rough map of some gravel roads that would take him into Colorado without much extra mileage. Besides, it worked off a bit of the good samaritan debt he'd accumulated, which had become quite sizable in his mind. Through tiny burgs of Burns, and Carpenter, and Hereford, Briggsdale, Fosston, Cornish, Barnesville and Lucerne, he worked his way toward Greeley. Who wouldn't let him in—coming from The North and all—and routed him back eastward, where he snuck through Kersey, Kuner and Masters before hitting I-76. A genuine interstate! Even if only a two-lane, it was such a relief after plunging through snow banks and bumping along ice-rutted roads. As he inched closer, his thoughts turned again to Amber. He hoped, imagined, prayed she'd be waiting for him. A cozy fire blazing. The others would clear out, give them privacy. He'd break into the secret stash of wine he hadn't told Russ about. The house was dark when he pulled up shortly past nine that night. He fleetingly thought they'd finally gotten the message about cutting the power at night, but the scarcity of cars squelched that. The headlights reflected off only a rusty old truck Nate tinkered with and one of the Suburban Squad. As he walked up, however, he could see his worst gut fear was realized. Windows were broken in, and at least a recent snow had drifted through them. The heat was obviously not working. Nor the lights. In the reflected moonlight he could see the inside was trashed. Whatever had held value had been stolen; the rest, destroyed. The TV in the main room lay smashed on the floor, electronics radiating outward like a dissected heart. It smelled of mildew and rancid beer. Nate sank to the floor. "You maniacs! You blew it up!" he sobbed. "God damn you! God damn you all to hell!"


back | next home