Run from Ruin Read online

  So, peace and intelligence are a pretty popping duo, but what about needing less sleep? Like, three hours a night. Or weight loss? People being able to finally, after decades of failing to do so, stick to a healthy diet and drop thirty pounds in six months. And not complain or be miserable in the process.

  Even the third-world was catching on, seeing the app as their only way out of poverty. The crazy thing was that it actually seemed to work, a fact that represented a real sore spot for certain political pundits who saw these masses as being helpless, hopeless victims without any internal resources. Yes, the world was becoming a bright, squeaky-clean version of itself with no end in sight for the perceived advances being experienced by literally billions.

  Fortunately for Nick and Jimmy, the app had had an adult-only warning; it actually made you prove your age through the use of a credit card in your name instead of just making you click some box swearing you were eighteen or older. But this wasn’t because DataMind didn’t want to get kids hooked; they had plans to increase their market share to include the two demographics that were least likely to use the app: kids and senior adults. The seniors didn’t adopt DataMind for the same reason they don’t adopt lots of things: old people are set in their ways and proud of it. The kids, however, were prohibited due to the unknown impact on their development. All the creators needed early on was some string of teen suicides, an easy to find happenstance, to shut them down in a hurry.

  Then the world went broke on that fateful Friday afternoon. The biweekly updates had come out on Fridays at eight a.m. eastern time, which meant it was only four in the morning in Alaska. But that didn’t matter. Like junkies jonesing for their next fix, people set their alarms all around the world so they could enjoy the benefits of the latest release. For these people, the updated version of the app was worth getting up in the middle of the night. It wasn’t like they needed eight uninterrupted hours of sleep anyway.

  Whatever it was, a bug, a glitch, bio-digital terrorism—the impact was felt instantaneously; the first symptom, the first complaint—and really their last—was that this update wasn’t as good as the previous one. In fact, it didn’t really work at all. Most people said they had headaches, that they’d even lost some of their abilities. News headlines flashed all over the internet and television: DATAMIND MISSED THE MARK and UPDATE FAIL.

  How little did they know how right they were? People scrambled to reload the old version of the app to see if it would undo the losses, to at least help people get back where they had been. The number one search engine term that day (also a news headline) was RELOAD OLD VERSION DATAMIND.

  Who knows? Maybe some people were actually successful, but if they were, it was too little too late. Within a couple hours after the update, there were reports of violent psychotic breaks occurring. It probably happened even sooner than that, but it took a couple hours before the staunch believers could accept the fact that the update had caused the breaks. One by one, pieces of the social machinery, persons from every industry, class, and sector, went broke. That was the term that in short order was used to describe the whole fiasco.

  Nick and Jimmy had been home when it all went down, glued to the news feed on TV and online. It was exciting in a weird way, the way older kids and even adults enjoy the oncoming blizzard or hurricane. Danger breathed some new life into them, albeit temporarily. They had tried to reach their parents. When their calls went through—usually the system was so overloaded they didn’t—they went straight to voicemail. They tried to rationalize this, saying that the phones weren’t really ringing, that the cell towers probably weren’t even working properly and that the system just sent their calls to voicemail. But deep down, they knew the truth. At least, Nick did; their parents had gone broke like all the other users of the app.

  That was three long days ago. The world had changed so much, so permanently in that period of time that Nick, although he tried, had trouble clearly remembering life before the update.

  Nick slowly surfaced from his interior self, first hearing the higher pitches of the radio, then hearing the still unintelligible gestalt and sound, and like eyes refocusing on a near object, he listened to the words spoken.

  “Who on there is closest to us?” Nick asked Jimmy who seemed to have been enthralled by the radio, rapt attention.

  “Some guy named Bob,” Jimmy answered.

  “Where?” Nick mouthed as if the HAMs could hear them talking.

  “Up in Deadhorse. Pretty close.” Jimmy half-grinned.

  “I guess. I mean, that’s closer than Florida, but I’d hate to try to walk there.”

  “Hey, we should try to talk to him.”

  “Who?” Nick asked perplexed.

  “Bob. He’s not that far. Maybe he knows where we should go, or—who knows? He’s the closest sane person we know. Except for Mrs. Lambert, but a lot of help she would be.”

  Nick tried to hide his grimace at the mention of Mrs. Lambert. He hadn’t told Jimmy, and he didn’t plan on doing so.

  “What if some crazy is listening and figures out where we are?” Nick asked.

  “Really? You think they are sitting at home listening to shortwave?”

  “There could be unaffected people listening. People like us that are desperate enough to…”

  “The most dangerous thing right now is isolation,” Jimmy said with self-evidential confidence.

  “Hardly,” Nick replied. But he let it go.

  Jimmy waited for a pause in the radio chatter, then he squeezed his pale fingers around the microphone/transceiver. “This is Jimmy Donovan in Fairbanks, Alaska. Anyone got your ears on?”

  Nick winced when Jimmy gave away their city locale and then again when he used the dumb CB-trucker jargon.

  There was silence. Then the voice from Denver said, “What’s your callsign?”

  Jimmy twisted his head over to Nick. Of course, Nick thought. You start this and turn to me when you don’t know what to do. Nick tried to think. There was something there, some clue deep down in the recesses of his childhood memories. Then he had it.

  He pointed at the wall where Grandpa Joe’s plaque hung. “Try that,” he said.

  “You want me to read Grandpa Joe’s plaque to them?”

  “No,” Nick said jumping up and moving to the wall. He read the award: This here certifies that Joseph Thatcher (#AD3CRD) has attained the notable achievement of relaying multiple stations on…

  “AD3CRD. Try that,” Nick said.

  Jimmy spoke the callsign cautiously.

  More static.

  “Well, that’s not your callsign, but I am interested to know where you got that. This is Bob in Deadhorse, since we don’t all seem to be licensed HAMs for the moment. I guess the FCC has enough trouble on their hands right now. Don’t suppose they’ll come after us anytime soon.”

  Nick thought he heard the geezer chuckle at his own comment before releasing the transceiver.

  “My brother and I are using my Grandpa Joe’s radio,” Jimmy confessed.

  “You’re Joe’s grandkids?” Bob said. “Well, I’ll be. Never thought I’d be hearing someone over Joe’s unit again. Say, how are you two fairing in Fairbanks?”

  “About like ever one else in the cities. As long as we keep quiet with the lights off, we’re okay.”

  “When are you planning to get out of there?”

  Jimmy looked at Nick. This was something they’d quarreled over already and with no clear winner.

  “We’re still working on that,” Jimmy answered. “My brother Nick doesn’t think it’s safe yet.”

  “I’d say he’s right. The problem is, it’s only going to get more dangerous if things go the way I expect them to,” Bob said. “You know, we’re the lucky ones here in Alaska. The closest nuclear reactor is in Russia, over a thousand miles west. And if I know those Ruskies—and I do—they didn’t all buy into the hype around DataMind. Shoot, I know there was probably a Russian translated app, but I bet not one in a hundred downloaded it over there. Y
ou know, they don’t really like being happy. It’s too unrealistic. If somebody is all smiles, they look at them like they’re crazy, weak-minded or something. Who knows? Maybe they’re right after all. Most people figure it’s just the cold that makes them that way, but it’s plenty cold in Alaska, and you boys know firsthand how many people swallowed that DataMind crap hook-line-and-sinker.”

  “Ask him what he meant about the reactors,” Nick said sotto voce. Ordinarily this rambling type would annoy Nick, but except for the fact he felt it was critical Bob finished his thought about the nucs, Nick enjoyed hearing him go on. As doom-and-gloom as the situation was, Bob seemed impervious.

  “What about the reactors?” Jimmy asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I hate to talk about it in front of the fellows who will have to face this head on, but they already know what they’re in for. Some parts of the Gulf won’t get hit too bad at first. But at some point, utilities will fail due to lack of workers. Mackey in Colorado—God bless his soul—is already transmitting off generators. But when the lights go out, best I can figure is you got three days in most places before the automatic generators used to cool the spent fuel rods of your neighborhood Mc-Nuc reactor runs out of diesel and begins to meltdown. Then you’ve got a hundred simultaneous Fukushimas on the North American continent.”

  Nick grabbed the transceiver, “But you said we’re not near a reactor. This is Nick by the way.”

  “Nick, you sound more like your Grandpa Joe than your brother does.”

  Nick didn’t look at Jimmy, but he knew this would bother him. Nick was a blood-relative; Jimmy wasn’t.

  “That’s true about the reactors,” Bob continued. “But you’re going to see some toxic brew swarming to the south of you. Most weather patterns move from west to east. But you’ve lived here long enough to know a storm can come in from any direction. I’m just suggesting you both get as far away from Dodge as you possibly can. Besides, even if the power stays on indefinitely, you can’t possibly have more than a few weeks of food left in your house. Then what are you going to do?”

  Bob was right, they’d already eaten all the crackers and chips in the house and were now relegated to the last dozen cans of Campbell’s soup and a couple cans of tuna.

  “Look,” Bob continued, “I wouldn’t bring all this up just to alarm you. Ignorance is bliss, and if I didn’t have an idea on how to help Joe’s grandkids I wouldn’t have even mentioned all this. Morbid, I guess, but I figure it’s better not to see some things coming if you can’t do anything about it.”

  Now that the stakes had changed in Nick’s mind, he was feeling less patient with Bob’s ramblings.

  “What should we do?” Nick asked.

  There was a brief pause, and for a moment Nick wondered if they’d lost Bob’s signal.

  “Come to Deadhorse,” Bob said finally. “I’m up here at the end of the Dalton Highway. If you follow it north until you run out of pavement, you’ll see the pipeline continue on a pace. It heads toward a mountain, Mount Hubley, and then veers sharply east. If you follow the pipeline and keep heading toward the mountain, you’ll run smack dab into the St. Victoria research station. We’re at the foot of the mountain, and even during a snow storm you ought to be able to see our beacon flashing. You’re welcome up here boys. And you’ll be safe.”

  Nick looked at Jimmy who seemed to be eating this with a spoon. He liked anything that would pull you out of your circumstances, any quick fix. Any fancy fantasy would do. Nick, on the other hand, saw nothing but reasons why this would fail: the distance to Deadhorse, the road conditions, a vehicle, fuel, getting lost, and were they really better off in Deadhorse with Bob?

  “That’s really nice of you,” Jimmy said. “We’d be glad to…”

  Nick grabbed the transceiver out of Jimmy’s hand who gave an injured look in return. “But we’ll think about it. Give us a night to sleep on it,” Nick finished.

  Nick had no intention of going to Deadhorse, but he’d been around Jimmy long enough to pick up his cues. He knew if he didn’t twist the screw slowly that the wood would split. Jimmy would do another one of his spas-out trips, and you never knew exactly what you’d be in for, just that you’d be in for a long, unpleasant headache if the storm called Jimmy’s episodes was summoned forth. Jimmy usually seemed passive and withdrawn, but when he latched onto something, an idea that his bleeding heart believed in, he could throw the most massive tantrums.

  “Boys, I’ve got everything you don’t: isolation, tons of food, and barrels of diesel to keep the lights on for years. They send people up here and stock the station to the hilt. You’re welcome any time, but realize the Dalton Highway’s not going to be passable for too much longer. Once we start getting snow this fall, you’d need some heavy equipment to get up here. I don’t suspect the truckers will be keeping it clear for us this year.”

  “Bob, we’ll talk in the morning,” Nick said, feigning a yawn. It didn’t matter that it was after midnight. Nick and Jimmy had been on summer break and out of school long enough to have reverted to the teenage graveyard shift.

  “Please do,” Bob said. “I’ll be counting on it. If I can help Joe’s grandkids—well, that would be some silver lining to this whole mess we’re in. Goodnight, boys.”

  CHAPTER 3

  THE REST OF that night was spent chatting about Bob and Deadhorse before the two powered down and plugged into their cell phones. Nick permitted Jimmy to go on about it, knowing it was something he would have to get out of his system. More so that night than the next day when the excitement of the idea had worn off a bit.

  Bed time for the boys was no longer an arbitrary moment when the hour and minute hands lined up on their parents’ clocks. Nick thought it strange though that what was obviously more natural, going to bed when you felt tired, meant that they ended up falling asleep later and later each night. And that was with all the TV channels down. Still, the internet was partially functioning. Most of the systems were programmed and therefor automatic, Nick figured. It was odd being able to stream top-dollar videos and movies with casts of actors that had surely gone broke and were probably dead already.

  Too, Nick wondered how many other unaffected people in the world were watching the same shows they were. There was a certain sense of belonging, togetherness even—although he would never use those words out loud—about watching a show or movie that your friends at school were sure to watch and talk about the next day. Or even those huge multi-million viewer shows that made news headlines. You knew you weren’t alone when you watched the most recent episode.

  Now, and maybe forever, that was gone. Whatever was still up on the web—even things Nick had wanted to see before the update—was just another relic of the old world that would probably never come back around again.

  Nick, headphones in and phone glowing brightly in his face, glanced up at Jimmy who was in the same kind of spot, curled up in what had become his part of the room: sleeping bag, pillow, some books, and his shoes pulled off on the floor next to him. Jimmy was plugged into his phone and the web too, partly because this is what teenagers did at all hours of the night, but also because this synthetic separation was the only real privacy the boys got from each other now.

  Nick could remember when their parents had first met and how great he and Jimmy had gotten along. After that first summer, Nick had been disappointed to find out Jimmy wouldn’t be in any of his classes when school started back. But that phase hadn’t lasted long. The differences between the boys emerged as they got older. And by the time Nick reached high school, neither of them were that excited by the other’s company.

  It was a regrettable situation, Nick believed. He wished he liked his brother more, but what could he do? And the feeling was mutual. Jimmy seemed totally disinterested in the things that got Nick going: cars, baseball, cool friends, and girls. Especially girls. It wasn’t that Nick was a dumb jock—he got better grades than Jimmy usually did, after all. He was just good at more than one thing. There’s no
rule that says you only have to use your brain, or you only use your body. Nick wasn’t a bookworm, but he did what he had to do to get the grades he was aiming for. That was it; he always knew what he wanted, and he laid the plans, the steps necessary to reach those goals.

  Jimmy couldn’t be more different. Jimmy was aimless, listless, indecisive. Except for things that seemed trivial to everyone else. He would latch onto these quirky, obtuse ideas and hang on for dear life. Their parents had thought it was just another phase, something Jimmy would grow out of eventually. Nick wasn’t so sure. Jimmy found things that were, in his words, fresh. He’d get really into Kurusawa films, or the band Rush, or a new game marketed as a multi-player expandable universe. He’d do these things with all his might, all his focus and enthusiasm for a few weeks, becoming the world’s imminent expert. And then, just as randomly as he fell into the mania, he’d fall out of it. Never to touch his obsession again.

  Then the hunt would begin. That was the part that was so insufferable, much worse than the manic obsession once a new interest was found. The hunt, Nick’s word for it, was that period when Jimmy was no longer infatuated with his old obsession—in fact, he was completely disillusioned by it. If you left him alone, then months or years later he could recount fondness for the subject. But if you pushed him about it right after he’d fallen out of love with the obsession, he would spew all kinds of bitter, sarcastic, spinster angst and never be able to think kindly of the subject ever again.

  Nick had silently predicted that one day Jimmy’s obsessive impulses would finally focus on a member of the opposite sex, but that day had never come. And Jimmy was sixteen, for crying out loud. Definitely old enough to have the heart-thumping, palm-sweating, stomach-sinking love intoxicating impulse that every young man experiences.