Chapter Forty-One

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO HOUR 11 MINUTES

brOKEN GLASS CRACKED under their feet as Joss and Steve crept down the same hallway the drone had traveled not long ago. They would trace its path to the basement and, ultimately, Joss realized with a chill, mirror the machine’s fate. They too would soon be found at the bottom of a pool of toxic water, gone. Damaged beyond repair. Their duty done.

With sunlight no longer streaming through the windows, the dim emergency lighting cast eerie, distorted shadows. Joss slowed her pace, aware that Steve was trailing her. The effects of the radiation were clearly worsening, but not for one second did she doubt he could get the job done.

Even with the hazmat suit, Joss felt a cold breeze cut through a broken window as they passed. She looked over to the rich navy-blue of twilight painting the sky above a dark and foreboding tree line in the distance. This landscape was home, as simple as it was beautiful. It was the place she had been born and raised—and soon, she realized, would die. She found it comforting that this place, this view, was the last glimpse of this earth she’d ever have.

Clicking on their headlamps, they made their way through the maze of the building, tracing the path of the drone. Down the hallway. Second right. One flight down. Two flights down. Their senses were heightened. Everything felt louder, softer, closer, farther; it was a disorienting state of hypervigilance, like walking through a haunted house.

Joss was in front as they descended the last flight of stairs, and just before they turned the corner, she held up a hand and froze.

They both stood there—not moving, just listening—until they heard it.

Water.

The two exchanged a glance. Joss leaned over the railing and peered down to the last of the steps below; her headlamp reflected off water filling the base of the stairs. The only other sound beyond the soft drips and rush of water was the clicking of the personal dosimeters fixed to both their hazmat suits.

They made their way down the last of the stairs and Joss paused before stepping into the ankle-deep water—yet another psychological point of no return to cross. They carried on, and soon they were standing side by side in the basement looking at the three large emergency generators, only one of which still had illuminated lights on the front. The other two were black and devoid of function. All three sat in water maybe three inches high.

Joss could feel her heart pounding in her chest. It was like standing in front of a mountain lion baring its fangs. You knew you were dead, but if you were brave enough, you could give your friends enough time to make a run for it. She swore she could hear her heartbeat, it was that loud—but when Steve ripped off his beeping dosimeter and threw it into the water, she realized what it really was. She followed his lead and the room went silent as their radiation detectors sank to the bottom.

“That way,” Joss said, pointing down the hall beyond Steve. She followed him, their rubber boots splashing as they went. The water wasn’t hurting them, not yet. The thick rubber of the boots protected the skin. The real damage would happen the deeper they went, when the water rose to where their suits were thinner. They crossed the room to the opening in the floor flanked with handrails: the entrance to the subbasement.

The water coming from the opening subtly bubbled and moved; this was where it was entering the basement. Steve was in front, Joss peered out from behind him. The staircase before them was completely submerged in dark, ominous water.

Steve grabbed the railing and started down into the subbasement. The first step was shin-deep. The next knee-deep. Down he went, each step reducing his life expectancy to nearly nothing.

Joss was right behind him, her hands shaking as she took hold of the railing at the top of the stairs. But just before she started down, there in those final moments, she paused. And in Joss’s own way, her life flashed before her eyes.

I am about to die.

Sure, her family would miss her. Yes, her friends would mourn. But she found relief in knowing she wasn’t really leaving anyone behind. No husband. No children. No one’s life would be catastrophically altered in a day-to-day way by her absence. She thought of all the pain Matt had already endured and all the pain that was yet to come. Joss’s heart broke for him. How was that fair, putting a child through that?

Living in this world was painful and scary and unjust. For Joss, she could never really understand bringing an innocent little being into all that pain and trauma just because—

Well… because why?

Because she’d had a crush on the drum major and wondered what their kids would look like? Because baby clothes are cute? Because shopping for her daughter’s wedding dress sounded like fun? Because those school photos that, year after year, charted your perfect little human’s evolution from child to teen to young adult were as perfect a thing as something could be?

It wasn’t that she didn’t like kids or didn’t want kids. No, her decision not to have children was born from her maternal instincts. She wanted to protect them, her nonexistent children, and now Joss felt relief in knowing she had. She had spared her children the devastating pain and confusion of losing their mother. No child would be alone and in pain because she had to go.

Her choice not to have kids had always felt right. She’d never once regretted it. Even now. Especially now. But if she was being honest with herself, here at the end, she found she was sad. Not regretful. She still knew she was right.

But she was sad.

Maybe, she realized, her heart aching as she thought it, it wasn’t enough to be right.

No one would mourn her, not in that way. No one left in this world would inherit any pieces of her. Her thoughts, her wisdom, her kindness, her care, her spunk, her fire—it all ended here. And whatever joy and creativity and love her children could have brought to the world over the course of their own lives—it would never exist.

Joss might be remembered; she might be missed. But she would not live on. And there was something profoundly sad in realizing, too late, that inside her—perhaps even as strong as her maternal instinct to protect—was the equally human desire to create.

Joss tightened her grip on the railing and was preparing to step down into the final chapter of her life when suddenly Steve yelled out.

“Wait!” he said, holding his hand out toward her. Joss froze. He bent down deeper into the staircase, angling his headlamp across the subbasement.

“That panel,” he said. “The one you said had switches that could be flipped that would turn the pump on. It’s down here?”

“Yes,” Joss said. “On the far wall. But with it submerged, the wiring would be wet. Not a chance it works and it might electrocute us if we tried to flip it.”

“And what if it wasn’t submerged?” Steve asked.

Joss was confused. She crouched down, looked under the overhang into the subbasement. Sure enough, there was the panel on the far wall, just where it was on the blueprints.

But what wasn’t on the blueprints was the discarded pile of construction supplies, including spare aluminum siding that was diverting the water away from that corner.

The panel was dry.

“If it worked—the switch—would we know?” Steve asked.

“Yes. We’d hear the pump kick on and the water would immediately begin to recede.”

“And then we wouldn’t have to open the sluice gate? If it worked?”

“Correct.”

Steve paused. “So then this would become a one-person job?”

Joss hesitated. She knew where this was going. And she felt tremendous guilt at the massive uptick in hope surging through her body.

“Yes,” she said. “That is correct.”

Steve smiled. “Then how about we try for one happy ending?”