The day after: An apocalyptic morning (106 page)

              "We have a deployment," Paul announced.

              "Confirm that," Mick said.

              "Very good," Skip said, using the anti-torque pedals to spin the nose back to the east. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

              "My thoughts exactly," Paul said. "I hope we haven't stirred up too much shit down there."

              It took more than a minute for the package to drift down to earth. It swung gently back and forth on the end of its tether, the arcs growing smaller and smaller with each cycle, until finally it was hanging almost motionless in the air. Thanks to the absence of wind, it came almost straight down, landing in the middle of the elementary school soccer field, almost exactly where its droppers had intended. By the time it touched down in a puddle of standing water, the helicopter that had dropped it had disappeared into the distance.

              Nothing moved in the town for more than five minutes after the landing - the package simply sat there amid the raindrops. Finally, from the row of classroom buildings two hundred feet away, a door opened. Three people - two women and one man - stepped out. All three were dressed in rain jackets and carrying assault weapons in their hands. Two of them had portable radios on their person. The male raised the radio to his lips and keyed it. "East perimeter, this is Wilson," he said into. "Still no sign of the chopper?"

              "It flew straight off to the east along the highway and disappeared," came the reply. "We're keeping a sharp eye out for it."

              "Okay," he said into the radio. "Good job spotting it back there. I don't think they saw anyone." He put the radio away.

              "If they didn't see anyone," the woman closest to him asked, "why did they drop a package on the ground? What the hell is going on here?"

              "I don't know," he told her. "I guess there's only one way to find out."

              "What if it's a bomb?" the other woman said. "You're not just going to go open it up, are you?"

              "Why would someone go to all the trouble of dropping a package bomb on us from a helicopter?" he asked her.

              "Because they're crazy?" she countered. "Pat, we don't have any idea what kind of people we're dealing with here."

              "No," he agreed, "but maybe we will have some sort of idea once we open that thing. You two stay back here. I'll go check it out."

              Neither of the two women seemed to like the idea, but neither voiced any more protest. Around them, other people began to stir and heads began to poke out from doorways and other hiding places despite the fact that the all-clear signal had not been sounded yet. Pat handed his weapon to one of his companions and then began to ease across the ground towards the mysterious gift. He walked gingerly, almost on tiptoes for a moment until he realized just how ridiculous this was. Shaking his head at himself, he then walked normally, strolling up through the soggy mud pit that the grass had become until he was less than five feet away.

              Despite his confident assurances to the others that it wasn't a bomb, he was still very reluctant to touch the thing. Finally, squatting down next to it, he gathered his courage and reached out, wincing as his fingers touched the plastic. Nothing happened, so he picked it up gently, testing its weight. It was four or five pounds and nothing inside rattled or shifted or exploded. Feeling a little bit better, he pulled out a pocketknife and unfolded it.

              He cut the parachute loose first of all and then began cutting through the duct tape that held on the outside layer of plastic. Slowly he pulled a cardboard shoebox free. It was a box that had once contained a pair of Nikes. Now, it was taped shut with more duct tape and a white envelope was fastened to the top of it with clear tape. The envelope read: TO THE CITIZENS OF EL DORADO HILLS.

              He pulled this envelope free and stuffed it inside of his rain jacket. Then, with a quick, reassuring glance back towards the anxious crowd that had gathered, he gave a thumbs-up sign and turned his attention to the box. Using his knife, he slit through the duct tape centimeter by centimeter, suspecting that if this package was indeed a bomb that this would be the detonation mechanism, but doing it anyway. Curiosity killed the cat after all.

              Nothing blew up when the first section was cut so he cut the second section a little quicker. Once the knife sliced through the silver layer, the lid was free. With a deep breath of anticipation, he lifted it, peering inside. What he saw at first was nothing but old newspapers and magazine pages all crumpled, apparently for shock resistance to whatever the contents were. He lifted several layers free and found himself looking at a portable radio. It was not a cheap walkie-talkie such as the ones they used to communicate between guard posts and the main building but an actual public safety issued radio. On the front of it, in big green letters, was stenciled: CDF, which he knew meant California Department of Forestry. It was a fire department radio. What the hell?

              He examined the rest of the box and found nothing but more packaging material. He then took another look at the radio itself to make sure that it was not in fact an explosive device of some sort before he carried it back. Though he was far from an expert on explosives, he was able to reasonably ascertain that there was no C4 or TNT attached or hidden in the parts. Finally, more than five minutes after he first kneeled down, he stood back up and walked over to the crowd.

              "It's a portable radio," he announced, carrying it inside the box from which it had come. "And there was an envelope attached to the front of the box."

              "What's in the envelope? What does it say?" asked nearly twenty different people in nearly twenty different ways.

              "Let's go inside the cafeteria," he said to them. "Pass the word. I'm calling an emergency community meeting right away and I'll read it aloud."

              It took almost twenty minutes before everyone gathered inside the school's cafeteria (with the exception of the guard force of course). Though the room was the largest in the school, indeed in the remaining township, there was not nearly enough seating for everyone. Well over half of the room was standing, many of them with small children in tow.

              "Listen up everyone," Pat said from a podium near the front of the room, his words amplified via a PA system powered by a generator. "I'm sure that by now that all of you know a package was dropped from a helicopter onto our town a little over an hour ago. We are reasonably certain that this was the same helicopter - a former California Highway Patrol aircraft - that flew by and probed us not too terribly long ago. Inside of the package they dropped was packing material, a fire department portable radio that used to belong to the California Department of Forestry, and an envelope addressed to "the citizens of El Dorado Hills."

              There was a considerable babble that rose up in the room at his words as he confirmed what most of them had already heard via the rumor mill.

              "Now," he continued, "without any further ado, I will open up the envelope and read what is inside to you all. From there, we will then have an open discussion on what the meaning of it all is."

              While the babbling rose back up, Pat utilized a pocketknife, the same one he'd used to open the package, to slit open the seal on the legal sized envelope. He peeled back the flap and removed a single piece of paper upon which rows of neat, typewritten text were printed. He unfolded it and set it down before him, his eyes taking in the first sentence: To the citizens of El Dorado Hills.

              He put a pair of reading glasses upon his face and began to speak:

              "To the citizens of El Dorado Hills," he read, "Greetings to you from your neighbors and fellow comet survivors in the town of Garden Hill. Before we go any further in this correspondence, let us reassure you first and foremost that we attempt this contact with you in the name of peace. We have no wishes of harm or conquest towards you and if you do not wish contact with us, we will respect that decision and leave you alone. Our purpose in this endeavor is nothing more than the wish to touch bases with others in the same predicament as ourselves, namely those that have managed to stay alive after the disaster that has stricken our planet and our civilization. We understand that talk is cheap and that, throughout history, many hostile undertakings by one group of people towards another have begun with peace overtures such as this one and that we have no way to convince you that we are sincere. But it is our hope that others out there our like ourselves and realize that the first step towards rebuilding after this calamity is communication with others. Trust has to begin somewhere so we hope that it can begin right here and it is our decision that we will start this process by being truthful and open with you.

              "You are probably wondering just how we know about your existence in the first place. As you are aware, we are in possession of an aircraft that used to belong to the California Highway Patrol. You are also undoubtedly aware that this aircraft flew by your town a few weeks before during daylight hours. At that time we saw no hint of habitation in your town, most likely because your defensive strategy is to hide when faced with a potential threat. This is understandable given the current climate in the world. However, this helicopter is also equipped with a forward-looking infrared pod, or FLIR, and a reconnaissance mission at night did reveal the fact that your town is populated. Please forgive us for this spy-like activity. We are not proud of it, but we did feel it necessary to look at the surrounding terrain under all conditions just to see what, if anything, is out there. Do be advised that we have learned much with this aircraft and that we would be happy to share this knowledge with you if a relationship is established between our communities."

              There was quite a bit of uproar from the floor of the cafeteria as they heard this. Some of the voices were angry, some fearful, some excited. Everyone, it seemed, had something to say however.

              "Folks," Pat said, raising his voice a little, "please, let's keep nice and calm, okay? Let me finish reading the letter and then we'll have a nice, orderly talk about what it says."

              Slowly the voices died down and the attention of the people was returned to him. "Okay," he said. "Continuing..."

              "In the package we have dropped to you, you have found a VHF portable radio with a fully-charged battery. This radio is capable of talking to our helicopter up to a distance of ten miles or so, as long as there is a direct line-of-sight. The setting to place the radio on is channel 7 on the selector switch if you wish to do this. We will return to the vicinity of your town tomorrow at 12:00 PM (Pacific Daylight time - we have not made the adjustment in light of other considerations - this will be 11:00 AM if you have made the adjustment). We will hover nearby and attempt to contact you on this radio. If you do not wish to have contact with us at this time you can either ignore us completely or tell us on the above-mentioned frequency that you do not wish to contact us. If you do either of these things, we will leave you in peace and not bother you any further. If you do wish to make contact with us however, please reply when you hear our hails and we will take things from there.

              "Please be advised as you decide on this Micker that we, in Garden Hill, are just as scared and alone as you in El Dorado Hills and that we will be taking as much of a chance by attempting contact. We are a small community that has barely managed to hang on through the recent events and we suspect that you are the same. Maybe together, we can help each other. Please remember that the first step is to establish trust between one another.

              "Hoping that we will hear from you tomorrow, Garden Hill."

              With that, Pat put down the letter.

              "There you have it, folks," he said into the microphone. "Let's start hearing your thoughts on what this all means and what we should do about it."

              The discussion that would follow would last until well after the dinner hour.

              Mick had been left behind for the return mission to El Dorado Hills, replaced by Paula. Jack, as always, was in the observer's chair while Paula and Paul crammed themselves into the back. The flight was almost completely silent as everyone was lost in his or her own thoughts. Jack simply stared ahead of them, not watching the ground with the FLIR as he usually did. Paula nervously wrung her hands together, occasionally chewing on her lip as if in deep concentration. Paul, perhaps the most nervous of all since he had helped push this idea through, only looked down at his lap, his hands twisting a small scrap of paper into an unrecognizable shred.

              "Five minutes," Skip announced when the passed over the Cameron Park airport. "We should be in radio range in less than three."

              "Copy," Paul said automatically.

              "I'm gonna cut to the south a little bit," Skip told them all. "I want to approach from an unexpected direction just on the off chance that they've laid a little trap for us."

              "That's a comforting thought," Paula said with a frown.

              "Hey," Skip said lightly, "it's my job to try to anticipate every eventuality. I like to think that they wouldn't do something like that, whether they want to talk to us or not, but I certainly can't say it's impossible."