Aurora(40)

“Oh, right. Your so-called tragedy.”

She looked at him, pissed off. “That is the most insensitive thing I’ve ever heard you say, and I’ve heard a lot of offensive shit from you.”

“Honestly, who gives a goddamn about what happened a hundred years ago? You are wasted potential.”

“I forgot. I don’t actually like you that much.”

“There is no time, Aubrey. For any of us. Look around. Could the hour possibly be any fucking later?”

“I should be getting back. I was in no way prepared for this.”

He shrugged. “Some people prepare. Some people don’t. Both get in the grave just the same.”

“Yeah, but some get in the grave a lot sooner. I really gotta go.”

“I want to show you something first.”

He led her into his den, with its desk that held his home radio setup.

He turned to his nineteen-fifties-era Zenith Trans-Oceanic radio setup, a truly gorgeous museum piece that dominated most of the space, its silver microphone sitting alertly on a stand in front of it.

“Your radio’s OK?” Aubrey asked.

“Newer setups would be fried, but this thing’s a warhorse. I was even on it when the CME hit. Vacuum tubes are very resistant to EMP—arcing, surges, no damage at all.”

“Scott’ll be glad to hear that. He loves that radio.”

“Tell him to come over, we’ll talk to some people.”

“I try, Norman.” She pointed back to the radio. “Have you raised anybody on it?”

“First forty-eight hours, not a thing. Sizzle and pop, that was it. Once the surges eased off in the magnetosphere, though, I started to get some decent signals, mostly down in the lower ranges, three to ten hertz. Just this morning I picked up the long-gig waves and I was really getting somewhere, but then go figure, I started feeling sick, nauseated and dizzy, so I went out to the couch to lie down for a few.”

“Which you will never do again.”

“No, ma’am,” he said.

“Problem is,” Noman continued, gesturing to the radio, “all I’m hearing is anecdotal. Everybody’s out there telling their horror stories, but good numbers are hard to come by. I’ve got a general global picture, but it’ll be days before I can really sort it out.”

“What countries are out so far?”

“It’s easier to say which ones still have power.” He picked up a yellow legal pad, crammed with notes, and pulled his reading glasses off the top of his head. “Parts of Colombia, Brazil, Uganda, Kenya, the Maldives, Indonesia.”

“Anything that’s near the equator.”

“Highest marks.”

“They never lost power?”

“Zero interruption. As the magnetic surge rippled south and north from the poles, it diminished. Lost its disruptive ability. It spared the entire equatorial band. But everything south and north of that, in both hemispheres? Infrastructure is almost completely gone. And the dominoes are still falling.”

Aubrey contemplated that. “What do you think is next for—”

Norman shook his head in furious agitation, the way he’d used to do with a student who wasn’t fully grasping his point. “Don’t blow past this, Aubrey. Take a moment and think about it. The United States, Canada, Scandinavia, England, France, Germany, Russia, most of China, Japan, I don’t know, name any other wealthy first-world country—we’re back in the Stone Age. Or, hell, give us some credit, the Bronze Age. And that’s where we’re going to stay for a year. Or more. But the Congo? Somalia? S?o Tomé and Príncipe? Fucking Kiribati? They are up and running, like nothing ever happened.” An incredulous smile spread across the professor’s face. He reached out and grabbed hold of Aubrey’s wrist, the fire of intellectual excitement burning in his eyes. “And do you know what else, Aubrey? Do you know what they’re up to in all these downtrodden places that have had the shit kicked out of them for a thousand years or so, by all of the assholes that are now in the dark? Do you know what they’re doing in these poverty-stricken countries that are suddenly the kings of the fucking world?”

Aubrey didn’t.

“They’re organizing relief efforts.” Norman shook his head again, tossed his notepad on the desk, and sat back from the console. “Offering to fly in contractors to increase their food production capabilities, so they can start to feed the rest of us. They’re giving free leases on land, tax-exempt status, and unlimited power draws for any nation or corporation that wants to base humanitarian work there. And the stuff produced won’t even be for them, mind you. It’s all for export. They don’t want anything in return. They just want to help.”

He drew the back of his hand across his eyes. “I think it’s the most touching goddamn thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Aubrey nodded, her mind racing ahead. “Money and power won’t matter.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Everything will be about food.”

She stood up, recapturing the line of thought she’d started an hour earlier on her front steps, while she stared at the pothead across the street.

“Food.”

Norman smiled. “Look at you go.”