Houston, 2030: The Year Zero Read online

  Chapter 2

  At quarter to eleven William and Clarice waited for Mark in front of their tiny TV, showing Back to the Future II re-run. The rest of the house was quiet and dark, – all the other family members had gone to bed.

  Two years ago, William simply walked in and announced his girlfriend Clarice was pregnant, and therefore they decided to get married. Mark and Mary were outraged.

  William refused all conversations about abortion, and Mark did not press the issue. By the State law of 2025, an interruption of a healthy pregnancy equated to a first-degree murder. Being an FBI agent, Mark would not send his potential daughter-in-law to a black market medic, which left the only option to have the procedure done in one of the states that had not passed the same drastic legislation. After studying the Internet, Mark discovered that the closest place with abortions both legal and relatively safe – was in California.

  Mark and Mary soon learned it was too late for an abortion anyway, as Clarice was expecting in under three months. “Why the hell have you been quiet for half a year?” Mary asked back then.

  “It's not like I can't predict what you two may say,” William replied, “remember, I'm not asking your permission, or anything. We will be married, regardless. If you don't like Clarice to stay with us, we can find a place of our own.”

  William's fiancée was an orphan who lost both parents and two brothers in the 2023 avian flu epidemic, and lived with distant relatives, as an unpaid housemaid. Mark felt pity for her and gave his approval, but thinking at the time this would be the worst decision ever. The eldest son's early marriage did not fit with Mark's expectations. Truly gifted, William could make an outstanding career, even in the difficult post-Meltdown times.

  Upon a little wedding ceremony, Clarice, with her drum-like tummy, moved in. She proved herself cheerful and easy-going, and a decent cook. Despite Mark's initial concerns, Clarice and Mary got along quite well. In due time, Clarice gave birth to a healthy boy, named David, after Mary's father. Soon later, William received his draft orders. Mark remembered how William bade them goodbye, standing next to a military motor-bus, holding little Davy on his arms, and smiling. “Three years in the USACE – no big deal,” he kept on saying. “The Engineers – is not the damn Infantry! Don't you worry. I'll be back in one piece.” William's military service ended rather abruptly, and a career was now out of question.

  “Dinner?” Clarice asked.

  “Shower!” Mark replied. With an LED lantern in hand, he walked straight into the downstairs bathroom. After four hours at the crime scene, he could not eat dinner yet.

  The city sewer stopped working six years ago, but Mark ran a length of PVC pipe, so gray water went into the backyard – for vegetables. The shower operated from a fifty-gallon plastic barrel installed on the roof. On a sunny day, Mark enjoyed almost-right temperature. Because of the barrel, the procedure was nicknamed Submariner's Shower. Fifteen seconds of running water to wet your skin, then forty-five seconds to wash the soap off. At least, Mark did not need to save the soap: several families opened tiny soap factories, and their product, if not of the best quality, appeared at the local flea market – at reasonable price.

  On such a day, Mark would give his right arm for a shower like they used to be before the Meltdown: strong, long, and hot. The last time he had one – eight, no, already nine years ago. Well after the Meltdown, but Americans still pretended it was business as usual. People drove private cars sometimes, the FBI budget provisioned for charter planes, and few five-star hotels were happy to organize a conference.

  Two hundred mid-level FBI personnel were summoned to Houston from three states to participate in seminars and brainstorming sessions. The official target was to establish strategies for dealing with the evolving organized crime: bootlegged gasoline, slave labor, and so on. Mark remembered little of what had been presented or decided; most of it became irrelevant within a year. Instead, his memory recalled the external attributes of normalcy. For the entire week, the participants were in classic FBI outfits: suits for men and power-dresses for women. The restaurant served real beef steaks and real coffee, and the rooms were air-conditioned. But the most important hotel luxury: showers! Real showers, one could make hot or cold as needed, with fragrant shampoo and bath gel. You stood under shower for good half an hour, and never ran out of water.

  Yes, it was a great week! By the event's last day, Mark almost convinced himself life would somehow revert to normal, how it was before the Meltdown. Then, holidays were over, and reality – back. On the way home, he stopped at Houston downtown flea market to exchange his formal suit for two second-hand school uniforms. His daughters, Samantha and Pamela, were about to go to school, and needed those far more than he would ever need his black jacket. Mark was right: the FBI had never held a formal conference again.

  A bit refreshed, Mark returned to the sitting room and started on a cold dinner Clarice saved for him. Today, the menu included tofu steak with bell pepper and boiled corn on the cob.

  “Ris saw you on the evening news, Dad. A double murder?” William started. Quite as Mark predicted, the camera girl had delivered her footage.

  “Yet another unfortunate couple.”

  “Hey, you're a movie star! Ris said: everybody looked real detectives from the CSI Miami! But honestly, it will take you a long while to become as natural as those pros on TV.” William had never been good at making jokes, but it did not prevent him from trying.

  “In Venezuela,” Mark asked, “did you meet a guy named Nick Hobson?”

  “You mean: a digger? No. But the name rings a bell. I think he left just before my deployment. Stepped on a mine, I believe.”

  William wiped remnants of his left eye with a short stump of his left arm, then made a futile attempt to reach his empty eye socket on the right. His right arm was amputated through the shoulder, with no stump at all.

  “Who is Nick Hobson?” Clarice kissed William and poured Mark flower tea.

  “Nick Hobson. The dead body on TV. Killed in the woods, along with yet unknown girl, that's all,” Mark was too tired and mentally wasted for a conversation about his serial killer case, and changed the subject. “How was your charity business today?”

  “Excellent!” Clarice said, “two hundred and fifty-three dollars!”

  “Apparently, my personal record,” William nodded.

  Since December, William participated in Change For Vets charity program. The deal simple enough: a military veteran, with the official Salvation Way red plastic bucket, collected charity donations. The revenues were fairly divided: fifty percent to Salvation Way and fifty – to collector. While William performed his duties, Clarice volunteered for soup kitchens: cleaned veggies, washed dishes, once in a while – helped to cook meals.

  With their ‘charity business’, Clarice, William and little Davy got by exactly as the support program intended: dirt-poor, but never quite hungry. A fine balance of generosity and scarcity, a Social Optimum, as it was now called by the Welfare bureaucrats: starving military veterans would be unfair and cruel, but having them too rich – immoral and uneconomical.

  Upon his initial training in Fort Worth boot camp, William was deployed to Venezuela, in which the United States guarded remaining operational oilfields against the resurgence groups. On the fourth month of his deployment, the inexperienced engineer triggered a booby trap on a wellhead. His bulletproof vest and helmet helped a little.

  William ended up on a floating hospital docked in Caracas – modified from a former cruise liner USNS Santa Lucia, christened in the military the Dumpster-of-Caribbean. Much like the World War I hospitals: radical surgeries, zero antibiotics, and almost no rehab. The expensive modern methods were reserved to other hospitals, for lucky soldiers with light injuries, – to be reused at the battlefield. And the Dumpster provided a Social Optimum for the rest: those with no chance to return to active duty, and thus an unwanted burden for the Army.
Wasting scarce medical resources on the useless cripples-in-the-making? Immoral and uneconomical! The United States afforded no such opulence.

  William later told Mark how he begged the medics to save his left arm, but always-busy and chronically sleep-deprived Dumpster personnel did not listen. In the triage room, one doctor told the wounded engineer to shut up and get ready to live the rest of his life without both arms. William asked what quality of life it supposed to be. A reply followed: private, your damn booby trap is not my fault, and your damn quality of life just today did not make into our priority list. Goddammit!

  “This is what we call a radical procedure, soldier. You might even like it this way,” the military surgeon assured William ninety minutes later. “Your stitches out in a week, and you're good to go. Believe me, nobody of my amputees had ever complained!”

  Then, despite further protests, the surgeon amputated both William's arms, leaving only a five-inch stump. On the right, the damaged eyeball was removed completely; the less mangled left eye – cleansed, plastered, and left to resolve by itself. A month later, William discovered the eye remnants were not entirely useless and could distinguish between light and darkness. As the second doctor predicted, William was not too upset about the drastic surgery. He learned the floating hospital's single operation theater handled no less than twenty life-saving procedures a day. Every extra minute spent on him by the surgeon might cost somebody's life. Besides, the nurses explained William that without antibiotics and other expensive drugs his mangled arms had a snowball-chance-in-hell anyway.

  Still on board the ship, William received so-called Dumpster-pack: a second-hand military uniform, a Purple Heart, and his honorable discharge papers. Three weeks later, the Dumpster-of-Caribbean crossed the sea and offloaded six hundred brand-new war amputees in Galveston.

  Despite his horrific injuries, William adjusted amazingly well, and it would not be possible without Clarice. Mark remembered how she phoned him at work. “William just called!” She fired, “from a hospital ship! Santa Lucia!”

  “From a hospital ship? I hope – nothing serious?”

  “He is fine! His surgery went all-right. Both arms are gone.”

  “What? Clarice! Gone? What do you mean?”

  “He said: both arms are gone. Amputated!”

  “Amputated? Shit! I am sorry, Clarice…”

  “Why ‘shit’? It's wonderful!” Clarice did not sound sad or even concerned, “My Billy will be home! Alive! Oh, Mark! I'm so happy!”

  “But – the arms?” Mark clenched his fist. What a freaking dummy I have for a daughter-in-law! Happy her husband became a cripple!

  “The arms – no big deal. I saw electronic arms – on TV! William can get a pair.”

  Eighteen days later, she received an SMS: the Santa Lucia arrives at noon tomorrow, relatives may come and collect the ‘vets.’ Through the end of the Twentieth Century, ‘vet’ almost universally meant ‘animal doctor.’ After all, animal clinics one found at every shopping mall, while ‘veteran’ had historical connotations, like those Vietnam War veterans, or even more distant: Les Invalides from Napoleonic Wars. Everybody was so politically-correct before the Meltdown! You should not call someone ‘crippled’ or ‘handicapped,’ but had to say: ‘mobility-challenged.’ A blind person should be called ‘perception-impaired,’ and an imbecile child – ‘differently-able.’ As the little wars progressed, filling filthy back-alleys in dilapidated cities with armless and legless young men in tattered uniforms, ‘vet’ crept into street talk, meaning ‘disabled veteran’ or ‘war amputee.’ A black joke went around: ‘vet’ is an abbreviation of ‘soldier.’

  Clarice told her Galveston story several times since. The motor-bus service between Sheldon-Res and Galveston still ran that year, but the last remaining bus approached the end of its useful life. On the day of her trip, Clarice got unlucky: the motor-bus stopped several times, and the driver had to fix something in the engine. They arrived to Galveston two hours past the schedule.

  “I ran to the port like mad,” Clarice recalled: “At Wharf Street, – holy crap! Every bar – full of vets on crutches! Like, everybody in the city missing a leg! So here I am, standing at the jetty. A woman comes along, dressed in scrubs, probably a nurse. Says: looking for someone, young lady? I started: how can I find a patient? William Pendergrass? And she: oh, who the hell would remember them by full names! You're a bit late, darling. The boys are all gone. Oh shit! Why did I take the goddamn motor-bus? Ponies are way more reliable.”

  “And the nurse asked: is he ambulating? – Ambu-what? – Can he walk on crutches? – Why on crutches? His legs are OK. They cut his arms off! And she said: both arms? Oh dear! How many did we have this time: six or seven? Poor boys! Why don't you check at the bus terminal? Or – in the bars? Everybody go get drunk right after crossing. We're a dry ship!”

  “I said: but wait, where can he go? He has no eyes! And she says: no arms and blind? What's the name, again? William, you said? So it must be Billy, from C-deck, starboard side, aft. A basket case! I asked: why? And she: as you heard, darling. A basket case – totally useless. Who are you to him: a sister? – A wife!”

  “So she said: it's good you've missed him! If I were you, darling, I would think twice before taking your husband home. I said: what the hell are you talking about? And she: well, you must consider. Free medical advice for you: go home, and let us send your husband straight to New Hope. It's… not too bad… He will understand. Give him few months to settle in and get used to his condition. Then – arrange a divorce! If you're afraid of meeting him – send the divorce papers by mail.”

  “Exactly what she told me! A divorce! By mail! So I said: no institution, and no divorce! And stop calling my William a basket case! My husband will be fine! Better than anybody else! My son Davy will not miss his Dad! I don't want to be rude, ma'am, but please cut the bullshit and show me where my husband may be! So she nodded and said: see that storage shack at the end of seawall? Go look around. And all the best to you, young lady. Your husband is a very lucky man…”

  “Suddenly, I saw tears in her eyes! What a funny job to be a nurse on the goddamn Santa Lucia!”

  The rest of the Galveston arrival story came from William: “In our cabin at C-deck, – ten guys. Eight with no leg, one with no arm, plus whatever remained of me! The boys said: no worries, buddy, we take care of you in the port. Yeah, right! The Dumpster docked, and – puff! Everybody disappeared in seconds. Well, they had a good excuse. The poor bastards started talking girls and beer five days before the arrival!”

  “An orderly guided me to the jetty. Wait here! I asked: wait? For what? – Ya bus is late. Will be he'a in fifty minutes. – What bus? – The New Hope bus! They will take ya to an 'stitution! I said: what if I don't want to? And he: up to ya, soldier. Ya have ya discharge papers – may go anyplace ya like! I thought: oh shit. What do I do now? Then, out of nowhere: private Pendergrass! You! Why are you standing there? Get your ass here – now! Ris impersonated a drill sergeant type. Of course, I recognized her voice: she's no good at barking commands.”

  Clarice always treated William as if nothing had happened. She pulled up his pants or straightened his T-shirt as naturally as fixing her own clothes. If William lost his way on the street, she pushed her husband in right direction, always with a laughter and a light kiss to the cheek. Their meal times became a game of sorts, full of mutual kissing and petting, and even visiting a latrine was always fun!

  The very last part of the Galveston story William entrusted only to his brother Mike, but the latter never kept such secrets for himself, and soon Mary and Mark received full report. After meeting William, Clarice could not hold it a second longer, so they had sex while waiting for the Sheldon-Res omnibus. For the lack of better venue, the adventure took place in a public latrine behind the Galveston bus terminal! They wanted more and repeated it t
wice before arriving to Sheldon-Res, – both times at the roadside service stations, while the omnibus drivers changed its horses.

  With such a love-making intensity, the desired result came three weeks after the William's homecoming. Clarice proudly told the family first, and then all the neighbors, that she was ‘delayed, all by the plan.’ She never specified what the plan might be, but Mark suspected his daughter-in-law intended to get pregnant and pup babies as fast as physiologically possible.

  It surely helped Clarice was born simple-minded and super-optimistic. She diligently pursued every opportunity, and no failure made her sad. Right after William's return, she decided his left eye should be fixed. If Billy had better vision, she kept saying, he might qualify for prosthetic arms. Never mind the Pentagon rejected his application; they would find a non-government charity! With all the stuff he learned on the Dumpster, William was reluctant, but finally agreed to visit a nearby ophthalmologist.

  Not something I can help you with, the old doctor stated, but Clarice wanted a second opinion. The second opinion followed, then the third, the fourth, and the fifth. She ran out of doctors in the closest neighborhoods, so two grueling omnibus trips to the downtown were made – with the same result.

  Then, she continued her search by e-mails. The eye photographs taken with a smart phone were no good, and she borrowed a proper camera. Six weeks and many thousand dollars later, the final verdict was established. The surgery was theoretically possible, but since the Meltdown only two hospitals in the United States still performed such procedures. The doctors calculated a price tag at around twenty million dollars, and with no insurance William had no way to raise such a sum. Besides the medical bills, the operation required a one-year trip to the North, with all associated dangers and expenses. With probability of success – twenty percent! Or less.

  Any other person would be a total wreck after learning all these hard facts, but not Clarice. Never mind, she said, and moved on – quite happily. The smile was always on her face, and Mark never heard a word of complaining.

  After a short news break (Mark spotted Natalie's serious face in the highlights), Back to the Future II continued. So astonishing, how well Hollywood guessed the life in 2015. The year before the Meltdown. Fancy electronic devices with huge screens, computers, and robots everywhere, precisely like in the movie. Posh, comfortable, worry-free, convenient lifestyle. OK, we had no flying cars in 2015, but apart from that, the movie makers were not too far off… But surely, Steven Spielberg and Rob Zemeckis could not imagine in 2030 the Americans would grow their own veggies and walk a mile to fetch water from the lake!

  After the Meltdown… Was it worse than the movie time, 1985, three years after Mark was born? Naturally, Hollywood should not be trusted with historical accuracy. Oh, we were flying to the Moon back then… Wait a moment. The Apollo Program ran even earlier, in the late sixties and early seventies! By 1985, the United States had abandoned the Moon idea, and started building Space Shuttles. Then she took after the Soviets to build the International Space Station. Which, in turn, was abandoned in 2016 and ditched in Indonesian jungles six years later. The seventies and the eighties were pretty nice…

  OK, if not fifty, did they live better or worse one hundred years ago, in 1930? Mark learned the Twentieth Century history from serious books, not from make-believe Hollywood movies! The Great Depression came, and times were rather rough. But the books said the Depression did not look half as bad as the Meltdown had been so far, and the crisis was over in less than ten years. It had been fourteen since the Meltdown began. Could the Meltdown end too, just taking a bit longer? Their family did much better than most: a good house in a healthy neighborhood, in which there were no gangs, and all the kids attended schools. Too bad William lost his arms, but Michael now had right to skip war-zone deployments. The exemptions were given to those who had a seriously disabled vet in the family… If not Mary and Mark, their children might see the end of the Meltdown era.

  Mark tried to stop his racing mind: must have a good sleep now. The address checks tomorrow… He wished goodnight to William and Clarice, and went upstairs, stumbling his way in a pitch-dark corridor. In the bedroom, Mary moaned in her sleep. Mark did not bother checking his telephone alarm clock: most of the family would be awake at five anyway, plenty of time for a ride to the Station. He climbed under a mosquito net, and three minutes later, was fast asleep.