The Future War

'You got it. Over and out,' Snog said.

ALASKA

John tossed the phone onto one of the tables. The fallout shelter was fairly elaborate, as such things went— all three of them had a lot of building experience, enough money, and paranoia to spare.

There were two bedrooms-cum-storage-areas, this central communications room linked to fiber-optic cables running out into the woods, a state-of-the-art fuel cell system without any dubious automatic controls, needless to say), and a small galley-type cooking area. It still smelled new, of green concrete and timber and paint, with a faint undertone of ozone from the electronics.

And then there was the armory…

'They're such kids,' he complained, worried.

'But they're smart,' Sarah said. 'If they make it out they'll grow up fast.'

'They'd better,' Dieter said. 'Those kids are our brain trust.'

Sarah could tell by the look on John's face that the thought gave him scant comfort.

MASSACHUSETTS

'I think I read in the worst-case-scenario handbook that if you have to crawl through a tunnel for any length of time you shouldn't crawl on your elbows and knees 'cause the skin's thin there. So you should push yourself along with your palms and your feet, suspending the rest of your body as much as you can.'

Snog looked over his shoulder toward Terri Neal's voice; she was puffing a bit—Terri was heavyset—and that let him locate her; right behind his feet, in the Stygian, smelly darkness of the drain. 'I don't think I could do that,' he said.

I think it would give me a heart attack if I tried.

He was dirty and soaked with sweat and no doubt smelled even worse than the drainage tunnel they were crawling through.

This was no time to try Superman stunts.

'Then maybe the next time we come to a place we can stand up, we should rip up a blanket and make padding for our knees and elbows,' Terri suggested. 'The book said that otherwise we'd be hamburger in no time. I'm paraphrasing, of course.'

A long line of mumbled 'uh-huhs,' broke out behind Snog.

She had a good point, and though he hated to sacrifice a blanket, he figured they'd better do it.

'Look,' Professor Clark said, 'we can't crawl all the way to Maine. Even if these tunnels do connect for that distance. Does anybody even know where we are?'

He sounded pretty testy, not that Snog could blame him. The guy was at least fifty and pretty near filled the tunnel they were crawling through. Still, Snog was glad to have recruited him.

Clark was a professor of engineering; that would come in handy.

Leanne Chu, somewhere behind Clark, was a professor of chemistry. They'd also picked up fifteen other students who were willing to take a chance on the sewers. Snog was glad to have all of them along.

He felt the weight of responsibility already and it made him aware of things they lacked. He kept thinking they needed rope for some reason. Terri had raided the Evian machine and had made each of them take as many bottles of water as they could carry. It was already apparent that they might not have enough.

There were three handguns and six boxes of ammunition in his backpack; Snog figured that if the others knew about them, they'd freak. Especially the professors. But it was the one thing John had insisted on. 'Whatever else you take with you,' he'd said, 'be sure and have a weapon. 'Cause if you meet up with someone who has one and you don't, you're dead meat.'

Better safe than sorry, Snog had figured. His family had always owned guns, so he saw them as tools and not icons of evil like the rest of his college friends seemed to.

Of course, it is a shame that they're available to nuts and criminals as though they were lollipops. But in this situation he was glad to have them. He'd have been even gladder to have some explosives and maybe an antitank launcher.

Finally they came to a place where they could stand up; three drainage tunnels met in a round concrete silo- type arrangement.

The floor was dirt over concrete; deep, sticky black mud, in fact.

He tried not to think what had crawled in and died in it, because he could plainly smell something had—fairly recently, if the molecules were getting through his shock-stunned sinuses.

Carl, Yam, and Brad hoisted him up to where he could look around, wobbling as he stood on their linked hands. He pried the heavy cover up, wincing as the rusty edges cut into his sore palms, and looked out the crack.

'We're out of the city,' he said. 'It looks like an old suburban development—big yards.'

There was a general sigh of relief.

'I'm not seeing any vehicles from here,' he said. There were chuckles of pleasure at that. 'Just trees, roads, and the odd roof.'

'Can you see where we are?' Dr. Clark asked.

'No, sir. I'll have to get out and take a look around.'

It was not going to be easy. The manhole cover must weigh seventy pounds or more. Necessary, he supposed: how else were they going to keep enterprising young men, such as himself, from messing around with them otherwise?

With his friends propping him up, he braced his feet and hands against the sides of the hole and lifted with his back, straining upward as hard as he could. Just as he was about to give up, he felt it move, grating in its groove, a small shower of sand and gravel poured over his helpers, causing them to splutter and curse. Finally he managed to work it over to one side, and it fell with a dull clunk.

As he stood on his friends' shoulders, panting, he braced his hands on the rim and looked around.

Uh-oh. It hit him like a pail of ice water. I've forgotten the machines.

Any number of them could have crept up on him while he was struggling. His knees went weak for a moment.

'Hey!' Carl protested as Snog's weight shifted. 'You okay?'

'Yeah. I'm gonna take a look around.' Snog hoisted himself out of the manhole and scurried toward some bushes in front of a house. There was a dog lying in the driveway; dead, but not run over, just limp, with its eyes dry and its tongue lying on the pavement in a puddle of vomit.

'Lemme up,' Brad said. 'I'll go with him.'

When they'd hoisted him up, Carl muttered, 'We should have let him go first; he doesn't weigh anything.'

Yam grunted in agreement.

'It looks clear,' Snog said quietly. 'Why don't we try to walk for a bit? If things get hairy we can always drop back into the drains.'

The others agreed enthusiastically, and within a few minutes everyone was stretching and looking around.

'We're not that far from the city,' Dr. Chu said, looking back toward Boston, where the midtown towers were small with distance, but quite visible.

'Maybe Newton,' Terri agreed.

'Still,' Snog protested, 'considering how we got here, it's quite an accomplishment. We came miles underground.'

'But where are we going?' someone asked. 'If you're right about the bombs, we've got to get out of Massachusetts. Hell, right out of New England.'

'My family has a place just over the border in Quebec,' Snog said. 'It's wilderness. We should be safe there. It's got all sorts of supplies—stocked for the winter. Sort of a hunting lodge thing.'

For a wonder, nobody sneered at him for coming from a family that killed Bambi, rather than buying pieces of mysteriously deceased cow at the supermarket.

'You're right,' Dr. Clark said, slapping Snog on the shoulder.

'But what we really need now is some form of transportation.'