pre-trial prison. I don’t have a right to take him out of there.”
“To the devil with the right! You have speed!”
“It’s easier to kill you,” he growled. “When there’s no person, there’s no problem.”
The girl turned pale and stepped back.
Suddenly Andrew realized that her blackmail threat had really been a great risk on Emily’s part. If he was a bad man at heart, he could send her into eternity without a second thought. It was a convenient moment; with so many people killed by the current disasters there would be no thorough investigation, if any at all.
“Don’t be scared, I’m joking. Let’s sit down and talk.”
The girl headed to the sofa glancing at Andrew with caution.
Her footsteps made the floor shake. Barkov was surprised. She seemed to be a slender girl. How could she tramp like a hippopotamus?
She stopped. The floor began to shake even harder. Hollow rumbles came from everywhere. Finally Andrew guessed what was happening.
“Earthquake!” he exclaimed. “Out, quickly!”
Emily turned around and rushed to the door. Taking his mother’s arm, Barkov followed the girl.
They crossed the front yard and stopped in the middle of the empty road. The rumble turned into a roar as though freight trains were coming from all quarters. Crowns of trees growing along the road were tossed about. Window glasses vibrated. A young woman holding the hands of two small kids ran out of the adjacent house. Some more people poured out of distant buildings.
Andrew felt the asphalt under his feet flex like an inflatable mattress and begin to wave. Women’s and children’s screams supplemented with car alarms split the air.
A crack appeared in the road a few steps away. Snaking and widening, it spread to the house opposite his mother’s. A fountain of water rushed out of the crack – probably the pipeline laid along the road underground had broken.
All of that continued for a few seconds. Then the shaking and rattling stopped as suddenly as they had started. The crack stopped widening, but water kept gushing out of it flooding the road and the green lawn before the nearest house.
Barkov looked at Nellie and Emily. His mother was standing, her teeth clenched, and looking around while Emily’s mouth was wide open.
He tugged at her arm. “Stop shouting!”
She closed her mouth and looked at Barkov in bewilderment as if he had just dropped from the moon. It became quieter at once. Gradually, neighbors’ yells subsided, too.
Barkov looked over at his mother’s house. It seemed to have no damages. There was not a single crack on the façade. That was luck!
Andrew knew from school that earthquakes could be caused by movement of tectonic plates at their joints or by eruption of volcanoes. But neither had ever happened in Miami. Why was it the case now?
Nellie Barkov answered his unvoiced question, “If the Earth core has slowed down, and the crust continues to spin with its own speed, friction arises between them. That part of what President Cheng said was true. I’ve worked as a land surveyor at construction sites and know about subsoil, and the geologic changes we’re seeing now are consistent with what I’ve learned. Earthquakes will happen everywhere. Even where they have never been.”
“You see, I was right!” Emily blurted out with untimely joy. “The world is collapsing!”
Andrew recognized her outburst – he’d seen it before in victims who are so traumatized that they laughed at something that had no humor.
“Yes,” Nellie confirmed. “Most probably, yes.”
Emily turned her attention to Nellie. “Bring your son to reason then. Let him release my father! Don’t you understand that otherwise I’ll never see him again? Show compassion!”
Nellie stared at the girl and replied after a pause, “I’m sorry that your father is an offender. I’m sorry for you, too. And for all other people. However, most of all I’m worried about my son’s fate. Do you understand that, Emily?”
The girl lowered her head and said in a dismal voice, “Sure.”
Nellie continued. “Therefore, I’m going to ask him to act not for you, your father or someone else but for himself,” she turned her eyes to her son. “Andrew, free her father, please!”
Andrew thought he misheard her. “What?”
Nellie looked around her. Neighbors didn’t pay any attention to them. The young woman’s children were crying and she was trying to calm them as she took them back to their house. The others were so far that they would not be able to catch her words.
His mother talked in a subdued voice looking him straight in the eye, “Son, the situation couldn’t be worse. The processes in the earth’s crust alone can kill the whole of humankind. We’ll also face problems with the air, oceans, solar radiation. We live on our planet like in a test tube, in very comfortable but delicate conditions. If there’s a minor shake-up, our number’s up. If what Emily overheard is true, the government officials are trying to escape to a refuge. They won’t let you or me in. But there is another way. I’ve heard about her father.” She cast a glance at Emily who was listening to her intently. “Many years ago Housman worked at BioTech. He was a promising young scientist, wrote articles… If you help him, he might help you. Tell your bosses that he’s innocent!”
“What are you talking about, Mom? How could he help me?”
“He’ll change your genome. He’ll make you… a superman.”
Andrew laughed. “Will he crossbreed me with a tarantula? Mom, it’s not time for jokes now!”
She took his hand. “I’m serious. No crossbreeds – that’s too primitive. BioTech has been around for a long time, and underground laboratories exist, and they continue their work.”
Andrew shook his head. “It’s not that simple to find them. You know quite well that a whole security department tries to find their location, but without much success.”
“That’s the point! That’s why you need Housman. He has relevant ties for sure,” Nellie shot an inquiring glance at Emily. “Doesn’t he?”
The girl nodded.
His mother’s words boggled Andrew’s mind. They contradicted all his views of genetic engineering. This science was the cause of terrifying mutations that happened to people all over the world. It could lead humankind to destruction.
“Mom, do you realize what you are saying? BioTech has already tried to create a superman. Don’t you remember the results? Gills and chicken wings on newborns, wool at puberty, sterility in the second generation! Is that salvation?”
“They hurried too much at BioTech,” Nellie objected. “They needed profits. They committed a crime not by intention but by their experiments on people without calculating all the consequences. Hopefully science has made great advance since then. This is our only chance.”
