John Barnes by Mother of Storms

Author:Mother of Storms [Storms, Mother of]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-12-11T23:53:07+00:00

MOTHER OF STORMS 223,

She does laugh, but it sounds kind. “Interesting. I have some work in musicology I like, too. Louie, what’s happening to us? Are we turning into machines?”

“I’d say it’s more likely machines are turning into us.”

They talk for a long time afterward, about everything and anything, and rather than sever the link they leave a little backchannel running between them; it feels like the kind of telepathy old marrieds have, for each always has a quiet awareness of what the other is thinking. The two loners are not lonely anymore, and won’t be until Louie begins his long journey.

On July 6, Clem Two heads east for most of the day, occasionally angling a little to the south. Di’s best guess, confirmed by Carla, is that this is because the two hurricanes, mother and daughter, have outflow jets pointed at each other and are thus creating a high-pressure ridge that pushes them away from each other. President Hardshaw talks with about a dozen presidents, dictators, and chiefs of state in the possible pathway of the storm.

Berlina Jameson brings out a special edition of Shiftings about the approach of Clem Two. A majority of Americans polled are under the impression that since Clem Two is a “daughter” hurricane it is somehow tied to Clem, and must be smaller than Clem. She tries to get across the idea that once Clem Two’s eye was created by the motion of Clem’s outflow jet, there was no further relationship, and there is nothing to prevent Clem Two from going elsewhere or growing bigger than its parent. Berlina works longer on this Shiftings than on any other, and her work is pirated everywhere, especially in Scuttlebytes, but it doesn’t matter; people believe what they want to believe and when large percentages of them are plugged into XV, the tendency is increased; why believe anything that might lead you to unplug?

She calls Di Callare one last time, but he has no time to talk with her; all she gets out of the conversation is a sense of how much things are going to hell. The man sounds like he hasn’t been home in a week or asleep in days.

She says she’s going to head to Mexico and then as far south as she can get, in hopes of getting better coverage of Clem Two’s impact on the coast; he tells her to avoid using roads too near either coast and to be careful when she hits the “drive yourself” zones.

Strangely enough, just as she’s checking out, the desk clerk hands her a piece of mail from the White House thanking her for her “role in alerting the public,” and enclosing a certificate for a “President’s award for journalism and citizenship.” She finds it a bit frightening that the President’s staff has nothing better to do, but she still pins the certificate to the ceiling of her car.

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