CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The Boy found the black case underneath a desk beneath the collapsed roof of the basement he’d crawled through under the tower.

“I found it!” he shouted back through the dust and the thin light their weak flashlights tried to throw across the rubble.

“Are there words written on the side of the case?” the Old Man called through the dark.

I must remember what Natalie told me to look for. The words she said we would find. What were they?

Pause.

Maybe he doesn’t know how to read. Who could have taught him?

“Project Einstein,” shouted the Boy.

Who taught him how to read?

“That’s it. Bring it out.”

Later, in the last of the daylight beneath the broken tower, they looked at the dusty case. On its side were military codes and numbers. But the words Natalie, General Watt, had told him to look for, the words were there.

Project Einstein.

I should be …

Excited? Happy? Hopeful?

But I’m not. It means we must go on now. It means we must go all the way.

Yes.

“Halt!”

The voice came from behind them. It was strong yet distant, as if muffled.

“Raise your hands above your heads!”

“Poppa,” whispered his granddaughter.

“Do it,” he whispered back. He noticed the Boy struggle to raise his left arm as quickly as the strong right one. Even then the left failed to straighten or fully rise.

Behind them, the Old Man heard boot steps grinding sand against the cracked tarmac of the runway.

If there is just one, we might have a chance.

The Old Man looked to see if the Boy’s tomahawk was on his belt. It was.

“Grayson! Trash! Move in and cover them.”

Movement, steps. Gear jingling and clanking together.

The voice stepped into view, circling wide to stand between the Old Man, his granddaughter, and the Boy and the broken tower.

He carried a gun. A rifle.

An assault rifle, remembered the Old Man.

His face was covered by a black rubber gas mask.

Beneath a long coat lay dusty and cracked black plastic armor.

‘Riot gear,’ thought the Old Man. Just like in the days before the bombs.

On top of his head was the matte-scratched helmet of a soldier.

At his hip, a wicked steel machete forged from some long-ago-salvaged car part lay strapped.

His boots were wrapped in rags.

Within his long coat, lying against the black plastic chest armor, a slender rectangle of dented and polished silver hung.

A harmonica.

The Old Man snatched a glance at the Project Einstein case on the ground.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” said the man in the dusty black riot armor as he raised his helmet and removed the rubber gas mask from his face. The man with the harmonica about his neck.

“And more importantly, where’d you get that tank?”

He was a few days unshaven.

He was young.

He’s just a man.

Like me.

But he’s young.

Like I once was.

So maybe it ends here. Like the dream I have done my best to avoid. It ends with these scavengers murdering me as my granddaughter watches.

It cannot end that way.

“What’re you doing out here?” repeated the Harmonica Man.

If I can get to my crowbar maybe the Boy will use his axe … Maybe.

“Listen,” said the Harmonica Man. “You need to tell me what you’re doing out here at the old base, right now!”

“They’re not with them,” said either Trash or Grayson from behind their masks.

“We don’t know that,” said the Harmonica Man. “And hell, they’ve got a tank.”

There is a moment in between.

A moment when things might go one way or the other.

A moment when those who are prone to caution, hesitate.

And those who are prone to action, act.

“We’re on a rescue mission,” said the Boy.

Silence.

Maybe the guns just dropped a bit.

Maybe the masked gunmen have softened their stance.

Maybe there are other good people.

Maybe, my friend. Just maybe.

“Who?” asked the Harmonica Man.

“I don’t know. He does.” The Boy points to the Old Man.

Everyone turns to him.

The Old Man nods.

“All right,” says the man. “We’ll lower our guns and you’ll tell us all about it. Then, we’ll see what happens next.”

The Old Man lowers his hands.

Should I?

What choice do you have? None that I can see now, my friend.

“There are some people,” begins the Old Man. “They’re trapped inside a bunker to the east. A place once called Colorado Springs. They need this device to get free.”

“What does it do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you with King Charlie?” asked the Harmonica Man.

“No. We don’t know any King Charlie.”

“How’d you get this tank?”

“I found it.”

The Harmonica Man thought about this, watching all of them.

The Old Man could see his granddaughter. Her mouth formed into a small “o.”

“Where will you go if we let you leave?”

If?

“We will go east and try to help those people.”

Silence.

“Why?”

Why?

Yes. Why, my friend?

“Because they need help.”

Harmonica Man lowered his gun and leaned it against his hip.

“We have food. Do you have any water?”

“Yes,” said the Old Man. “Some.”

“It’ll be night soon. Let’s eat and I’ll tell you why you might want to turn back.”