To Pay Paul by Michael Scott Curnes

Author:Michael Scott Curnes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michael Scott Curnes
Published: 2022-06-30T01:29:22+00:00

Chapter Six

Seamus awoke to the sound of Cody’s voice. The other man was sitting on the casket—their sole piece of furniture—speaking softly into his phone, which he held a few inches from his face as the daylight began to spill into the subterranean space. Seamus wondered if he had a signal, and his heart leapt several beats ahead of reality. He lifted himself to his elbows and cleared his throat, announcing his growing alertness.

“I was trying not to wake you,” Cody said, lowering the phone.

“What’s for breakfast and who are you talking to?” Seamus asked.

Seamus could see the rosy blush on Cody’s cheeks from across the cave and this was followed by the admission that he’d tossed their breakfast up through the hole overhead, as it had started to stink, like—well, like the rest of the space, thanks to Gerald.

“I was recording a message for Angie, you know, in case …” Cody trailed off, raising a fist to his mouth. He recovered after a few seconds. “I also wanted to tell somebody that our latest risk assessment and modeling analysis at Priest Rapids rates the dam at an 83% chance of failing catastrophically within the next five-to-ten years. The public has a right to know this and maybe then they will demand something more out of our fat-cat politicians and government secret-keepers.”

“Wow.” Seamus had begun to face the music, too—even if it sounded like a requiem. Maybe the two of them weren’t going to survive this accidental plunge into the underworld. If they perished here, they wouldn’t have to worry about managing or cleaning up the coming disasters—but of course, if Cody’s analysis was accurate, Hanford and the Tri-Cities were not ready. Hanford, especially, was a nuclear sitting duck; sprawled out ten miles below the dam’s reservoir. This was the threat facing Hanford while Hanford was already a liability and threat to humanity. Seamus knew that Priest Rapids failing would be a re-enactment of the great floods that had been dispatched by the breaking ice dams. The super cleanup scheme was never expected to do more than appease the skeptics—the residual environmental contamination would still inevitably ride the crest of any coming tsunami, should any of the upriver dams get breached. Seamus had planned to retire and relocate in the next few years anyway—whether this plan was a means to escape culpability or to avoid developing another type of cancer, he vacillated. And maybe it was too late for the latter. He’d stopped seeing a doctor and hadn’t had a physical exam in fifteen years—he just didn’t want to hear the news that came to every Quinlan. He preferred to live his life oblivious of what his body might or might not be cooking up. It seemed the happier route to take. But then, this calamity had landed him in a cave he might not be able to escape.

“Maybe you should think about recording anything you want to get off your chest, Seamus,” Cody suggested, reaching his cellphone to his similarly doomed partner.

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