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By Root 1304 0

exposure swath. Dairy samplers will test milk and randomized foodstuffs over the next three days along the ingestion swath. We are not simulating a particular spillage today. This is an all-purpose leak or spill. It could be radioactive steam, chemical cloudlets, a haze of unknown origin. The important thing is movement. Get those people out of the swath. We learned a lot during the night of the billowing cloud. But there is no substitute for a planned simulation. If reality intrudes in the form of a car crash or a victim falling off a stretcher, it is important to remember that we are not here to mend broken bones or put out real fires. We are here to simulate. Interruptions can cost lives in a real emergency. If we learn to work around interruptions now, we’ll be able to work around them later when it counts. O-right. When the siren sounds two melancholy wails, street captains will make house-to-house searches for those who may have been inadvertently left behind. Birds, goldfish, elderly people, handicapped people, invalids, shut-ins, whatever. Five minutes, victims. All you rescue personnel, remember this is not a blast simulation. Your victims are overcome but not traumatized. Save your tender loving care for the nuclear fireball in June. We’re at four minutes and counting. Victims, go limp. And remember you’re not here to scream or thrash about. We like a low-profile victim. This isn’t New York or L.A. Soft moans will suffice.”

I decided I didn’t want to watch. I went back to the car and headed home. The sirens emitted the first three blasts as I pulled up in front of the house. Heinrich was sitting on the front steps, wearing a reflector vest and his camouflage cap. With him was an older boy. He had a powerful compact body of uncertain pigmentation. No one on our street seemed to be evacuating. Heinrich consulted a clipboard.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m a street captain,” he said.

“Did you know Steffie was a victim?”

“She said she might be.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“So they pick her up and put her in an ambulance. What’s the groblem?”

“I don’t know what the problem is.”

“If she wants to do it, she should do it.”

“She seems so well-adjusted to the role.”

“It could save her life someday,” he said.

“How can pretending to be injured or dead save a person’s life?”

“If she does it now, she might not have to do it later. The more you practice something, the less likely it is to actually happen.”

“That’s what the consultant said.”

“It’s a gimmick but it works.”

“Who’s this?”

“This is Orest Mercator. He’s going to help me check for leftovers.”

“You’re the one who wants to sit in a cage full of deadly snakes. Can you tell me why?”

“Because I’m going for the record,” Orest said.

“Why would you want to get killed going for a record?”

“What killed? Who said anything about killed?”

“You’ll be surrounded by rare and deadly reptiles.”

“They’re the best at what they do. I want to be the best at what I do.”

“What do you do?” “I sit in a cage for sixty-seven days. That’s what it takes to break the record.”

“Do you understand that you are risking death for a couple of lines in a paperback book?”

He looked searchingly at Heinrich, obviously holding the boy responsible for this idiotic line of questioning.

“They will bite you,” I went on.

“They won’t bite me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know.”

“These are real snakes, Orest. One bite, that’s it.”

“One bite if they bite. But they won’t bite.”

“They are real. You are real. People get bitten all the time. The venom is deadly.”

“People get bitten. But I won’t.”

I found myself saying, “You will, you will. These snakes don’t know you find death inconceivable. They don’t know you’re young and strong and you think death applies to everyone but you. They will bite and you will die.”

I paused, shamed by the passion of my argument. I was surprised to see him look at me with a certain interest, a certain grudging respect. Perhaps the unbecoming force of my outburst brought home to him the gravity of his task, filled him with intimations of an unwieldy fate.

“They