The Aftermath Read Online Free Page B

anymore.”
    Pauline opened her son’s suit locker.
    â€œMom,” Theo said, stretching the truth only slightly, “Dad said I should help you with your suit before I get into mine.”
    â€œWhat about me?” Angie snapped.
    Theo smirked at her. “He knew Mom would have his precious little chubbo all suited up by the time I got here.”
    â€œMom!” she yowled.
    Pauline sat down on the bench that ran in front of the lockers. “Don’t you two start,” she warned. “This is no time for bickering.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” said Theo. But he saw Angie stick her tongue out at him behind their mother’s back. As he pulled his mother’s suit torso from its rack he thought that his sister might be two years older than he, but she was still nothing more than a bratty girl.
    Dad had spoken more than once about buying new nanofabric space suits for them, the kind you could pull on like plastic coveralls and be suited up in a minute or less. But they cost too much. All they had aboard Syracuse were these old-fashioned cumbersome hard-shell suits, with their big ungainly boots and heavy backpacks and glassteel bubble helmets. At least the suits ran on oxygen at normal air pressure; you didn’t have to spend an hour prebreathing low-pressure oxy like the earliest astronauts did.
    They said little as they donned their suits. The ship shuddered and jolted a few times, whether from being hit by the attacker’s laser beams or from Dad jinking to get away, Theo had no way of knowing. Dull booming noises echoed distantly. Angie’s eyes widened with every thud and shake; their mother looked grim.
    Leaving the visors of their helmets up, the three of them inspected each other’s suits, making certain all the connections were in place and the seals tight. Theo noticed that his hands were trembling slightly.
    â€œWhat do we do now?” Angie asked. Theo thought her voice sounded shaky. She’s scared now, he realized. I am too, but I can’t let them see it. I’ve got to be the man here.
    Pauline said, “Now we wait. If the ship is badly punctured we can live inside the suits until we repair the damage.”
    Theo pressed the stud on his left cuff. “Dad, we’re suited up. Waiting for your orders.”
    No answer.
    â€œI told you the intercom wasn’t working, chimpbrain,” Angie said.
    â€œThe suit radios are on a different frequency, dumbbutt,” Theo told her. “Dad, we’re in our suits. What’s your situation?”
    Nothing but silence. Not even the crackle of the radio’s carrier wave.
    â€œDad!” Theo shouted.
    Angie’s face went ashen. “Do you think…”
    Theo turned from his sister to his mother. For the first time in his life she looked fearful.

VICTOR SULEIMAN ZACHARIAS
    He was born in one of the tent cities strung along the craggy ridges of eastern Kentucky; his parents were refugees from the greenhouse flooding that had inundated most of Chicago. Victor’s father had once owned a restaurant in the part of that city called Greek Town. His mother was a Palestinian exile who had barely managed to escape the nuclear devastation of Israel and Lebanon. Victor was their only child; his father refused to bring another baby into a world ravaged by the savagery of nature and the cruelty of men.
    At sixteen his mother died and Victor ran away from the tattered city of tents to join the army. He was short, underweight and underage but the recruiters asked few questions. After four years of guarding food warehouses and putting down riots, he won a scholarship to study—of all things—architecture at Syracuse University in the middle of New York state. He graduated just as the earthquakes in the Midwest brought on a new wave of flooding, and the Gulf of Mexico washed halfway up the Mississippi valley. Returning home, he found that his father had drowned while doing forced labor