Eli struggles in her arms like a giant fish. Struggles to escape her grip.
"No. Stay here," Chloe says in a curt whisper.
"I'll be right back."
She thinks he needs to use the bathroom. But he returns a moment later and hands her something. It is the bowl of popcorn.
"Daddy said I should take care of you while he's gone," he says. "Here."
She kisses him.
There comes a heavy, pounding knock on the door.
"United States Army," a voice shouts. "Is there anyone in there?"
Chloe scoops up Eli and rushes to the door. A young blond soldier with glasses smiles in the glow of his flashlight as she lets him in.
"Thank God you're alive, ma'am," he says, lowering his rifle. "Somebody turned off the electric fence, and they got in through the basement somehow. We think we have it under control now. Are you hurt? Is your son all right?"
"We're fine," Chloe says. "Chimpanzees tried to get in through the balcony, but then they left."
"So that's what they were," the soldier says, shaking his head. "I knew I saw something jump over the perimeter fence from the second-floor balcony."</ol>
"Are many people hurt? The other families?"
"I'd be lying if I said no," the soldier said. "Three families on the fourth floor seem to have taken the worst of it. There have been about half a dozen casualties so far. We're still sweeping. In the meantime … ," the soldier says, offering her something.
Chloe just stares at it.
It is a flat black pistol.
"We can't be everywhere at once, ma'am. You might need to use it to drive off the next wave."
"What if I can't?"
"Then you might really need it," the soldier says, slapping it into her hand and turning to go.
The gun lies dark, cold, and heavy in her hand. She hates to touch it. She knows all too well what he meant about needing it. He meant that she should use it on Eli and herself rather than be eaten alive.
"Mommy, is that a real gun?" says Eli.
"No."
Chapter 88
THE MESSAGE, AS it has come to be called at the White House, is delivered the next day at 0900, and put on a loop to repeat for the rest of the day.
On all TVs and radios, programming is interrupted. The message is broadcast through megaphones on helicopters and through the speakers on army vehicles roving the streets.
An image of the Oval Office appears on the forty-foot LED screen at One Times Square. The forty-fifth president of the United States of America, Marlena Grace Hardinson, sits behind the desk. Her smoky, dark green eyes look resolutely into the camera, and in a slow, careful voice, she begins.
"My fellow Americans, I would like to say good morning to you," the president says. "But as we all know, this isn't a very good morning for many of us. We are currently experiencing a dark moment in the annals of human history.
"I say this from hard-won personal knowledge. My own daughter, Allison, died yesterday. She was killed by our family pet. This is a tragedy that I and my husband, Richard, may never recover from. But we need to go on. We all do, and we will. That is what the United States of America does.
"Despite the efforts of our military, all across our nation, and indeed all across our planet, animals continue to attack human beings savagely, and without cessation. Fortunately, after much careful research, our scientists believe they have discovered some of the responsible factors underlying these attacks.
"For many years, there has been much heated debate over industrial pollution and its contribution to global warming. As we researched the dangers of industrial activity on climate change, it seems we were simultaneously overlooking another problem that has been developing unnoticed right under our noses for years. This problem amounts to the destabilization of the biosphere.
"It has come to light that the aberrant animal behavior may be directly related to human activity. The recent buildup of hydrocarbon-rich petroleum products, coupled with radiation from cellular phones, has caused changes in the environment, which these animals are reacting to. It has been explained to me that the hydrocarbons normally found in the human environment have subtly morphed into a substance that many animals' sensory faculties are interpreting as a pheromone, altering these animals' behaviors. These new airborne chemical particulates are causing animals to swarm together and attack human beings.
"In the interest of public safety, we must do everything in our power to reverse this process. That is why I am asking for the people of the United States of America to come together with the rest of the world this morning. Though I know it will be a great hardship, for the next two weeks, we must cease the use of all cellular phones and electricity, and cease the burning of fossil fuels. In essence, we need to clear the air, literally, of both radiation and petroleum by-products if a first step in ending this disaster is to be made.
"I have just signed an emergency executive order stipulating that all cellular communication towers and power plants in the United States of America will be shut down as of midnight tonight. Except for hospitals and designated emergency personnel, the use of portable generators is banned. The driving of vehicles will also be prohibited, and any violators are subject to arrest. The heads of other major industrial nations, among them the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Japan, have agreed to do the same. You will be informed of any and all further instructions. This two-week cessation is essential to allow our scientists to confirm the causes of human-animal conflict, and for us to formulate a coordinated plan for the future. Thank you for your cooperation. God bless America, and God bless us all."
Chapter 89
WHEN THE PRESIDENT'S speech came on, Charles Groh and I were downstairs in the Navy Mess, drinking coffee and trying to brainstorm. It was more of a light brainshower-we were too spent and frazzled to stir up a storm.</ol>
Really, we were just waiting and watching until the minute hand oozed into place to form the perfect backward L of nine o'clock, and we followed the scuttling commotion into the adjoining stainless steel kitchen and gathered with the crowd of kitchen staff where they stood, vigilant and hushed, beneath a TV mounted to the wall.
When the broadcast was over, the crowd dissolved into anxious murmurs.
"The power's going out, and the army is going to lock people up for driving their cars?" said a portly black chef. Somebody switched off the TV. "That's the brilliant new plan?"
He seemed skeptical. Everyone did. I was skeptical, too, and I was the primary architect of the brilliant new plan.
"How does it feel?" said Dr. Groh as we arrived back at our table in the nearly empty dining room.
"How does what feel?"
"To finally get what you want," he said. "You've been trying to warn people for how long? A decade, almost? Now they're listening. It's got to be pretty weird to finally get what you want."
"I just hope it's what we need."
I drank the last of my coffee and looked at the sludge in the bottom of the paper cup as though I were a gypsy reading tea leaves. I thought about it. My feelings were definitely of the mixed variety. I was glad the idiotic carpet-bombing campaign had been stopped, but the problem was that my petroleum-radiation-pheromone theory was still just that: a theory.
There was a strong possibility I could be completely wrong, or only half right. It was impossible to rule out other factors contributing to the problem. It was even possible that radiation, electricity, and petroleum had nothing to do with it-that we'd just been barking up the wrong tree. (Ha-ha.) Science is like that. It doesn't have the answers. It guesses, tests, and guesses again. I had my guesses, and now they were going to be tested. Turning off the world's lights was an unprecedented, historic event. What if it didn't work?
"It feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders, Charles," I said. "I'm pretty much scared shitless."
Dr. Groh shrugged.
When we returned to the Cabinet Room for another round of meetings, everyone seemed dazed, exhausted. But it was the kind of upbeat dazed and exhausted you see in people racing to meet a deadline, the pizza-box-and-black-coffee all-nighter, the burned-out look of dedicated people in the final push of getting something difficult done.
When the president walked in, a spontaneous burst of applause filled the crowded room.
But as the energy secretary whistled through pinched fingers, I kept my hands at my sides. This wasn't the end of something. This was just the very beginning of what I anticipated was going to be a long, hard journey. I couldn't quite join in the self-congratulation just yet.
Because letting the public know was one thing.
Getting them to comply was quite another.
In order for this to work, people had to actually stop using electricity and driving cars.
Would they?
It all depended upon people observing the new emergency ordinances. Realistically, there were nowhere near enough boots on the ground to enforce these contingency laws-so all we could do was to count on people to cooperate. In officer training, one of the first things they tell you is to never give an order unless you're sure it will be obeyed. If a law cannot be enforced, it's easy for it to crumble. As Frederick the Great said, diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.