Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [149]
All the streets in Northwest were empty, or very close to it. No more blue jeans and windbreakers; the only people out and about were dressed as for polar exploration, or at the very least, a day of very cold skiing. These people greeted each other with the cheeriness of people who have survived a rapture and inherited the world. They were mostly men at first, out to see if they could help somehow, out for the hell of it really; and then there were quite a few women out too, more and more as the day wore on, often in bright ski colors. Esprit de corps was high. People waved to each other as they passed, stopped to talk on the street. Everyone agreed that anybody out in this without good gear would quickly go hypothermic, while on the other hand, good gear and constant exertion meant one could thrive. It was a stunning experience of the technological sublime, an evident natural religion. Space was indeed felt as a great thing. And some of the coffee shops were still open, so Frank ducked in them from time to time, like everyone else, for a break from the penetrating chill. Heated caves, there to take shelter in any time it got to be too much—as long as the area still had electricity, of course. The areas without power would be in trouble, perhaps in need of evacuation.
“I’m from Ohio,” one man said to Frank outside a Starbucks. “This is nothing!”
“Well, it’s pretty cold,” Frank said.
“True! But it’s not windy. Thank God for that. Because it’s not the cold, it’s the . . .”
Having toured Connecticut Avenue, Frank began a comprehensive hunt through Rock Creek Park, walking the Western Ridge Trail and venturing down every side trail. He was relieved to find that the park was basically empty. The deer were tucked into their brakes and hollows; he wondered whether these would be enough, this could be a major die-off. But you never knew. Snow was a tremendous insulator and windguard, and these deer had gone through winters before.
And the truth was, they could use some culling. It was the ferals he was really worried about.
Then he found three people, still huddled together in a wood-and-cardboard shelter, down by site 9. At first he thought they were dead; then they stirred. He called 911 and waited, getting colder and colder as he tried unsuccessfully to rouse them, until some firemen got there. He helped them get the three up to the road and the truck, two on stretchers; the one who had been in the middle had done a bit better.
He went back to look for more. Rock Creek itself was frozen to its bottom, of course. The whole park was quiet, the city beyond it unusually quiet too, except for the ongoing wail of sirens, criss-crossing like tortured coyotes or the gibbons with megaphones.
The firemen had said the power grid might go comprehensively when the demand for juice was so high. The power companies had instituted preemptive brownouts to keep from blowing the system. Fire trucks were some of the only vehicles that would still start reliably, because they were kept in heated garages. Battery heaters were crucial at temps like these, but of course no one had any.
“My van started this morning,” Frank had told them.
“You get one, usually, but don’t be sure it’ll happen again, they’re done for at these temps. It’s fifty below!”
“I know.”
Lucky no wind! they said.
Frank checked the hot boxes left out for the ferals. If there was a loss of power to these the result would be catastrophic. Every box was crowded with a menagerie of miserable animals, like little shipwrecked bits of Noah’s Ark, every single creature subdued and huddled into itself. The gibbons hung from the corners of the roof near the heating elements, their little faces frowning like Laurel and Hardy after a reversal.
Frank called in to Nancy and reported what he saw. Zoo staff were doing what they could to collect any creatures they could, but the holdouts were skittish and determined to stay out; if the zoo folks tried for them now they stood a very good chance of driving them away and killing them.