The Tempest by A.J. Scudiere (story read aloud .txt) 📗

jerked forward immediately, though it seemed to take Sarah and Dev a little longer to put the name together with the roommate they constantly called “Cage.”

“Yes!” She rubbed her hands down the front of her jacket and missed the soft feel of Toto curled in the pocket. She'd left him with Boomer, confident he was in good hands. But now, holding Toto would have made the news more bearable.

The doctor nodded, a short, curt movement, as she was clearly very practiced at not giving away any information from her expression. But her next words were, “The surgery was a success. Your brother should have a full recovery, though he’ll be in the hospital for at least several days for observation and physical therapy.”

At Joule’s expectant expression, she continued. “The bullet went all the way through, but it didn’t nick an artery or a bone. Our time was spent making sure that nothing else was damaged and then that everything was properly put back together.”

Joule was stunned, trying to absorb what her brain told her was only good news. She couldn’t feel it yet, though.

The doctor stared at her, as if something might be wrong. But surely she'd seen this before? People must need a moment all the time. She gently asked, “Is there anything else I can answer for you?”

“That's it? Just the one surgery? Then he’s good as new?”

“Well, he will have a scar. A gunshot wound scar. He might think that's cool.”

Not right now, Joule thought, though Cage would. He’d enjoy matching the scar where she'd stabbed him. She latched onto that and blurted out, “The fact that he was stabbed in that same leg before didn't interfere?”

“It wasn't quite the same place. The old scar isn't deep. Whoever took care of it handled it perfectly adequately.”

Perfectly adequately. Joule thought of her time in the attic, frantically trying to glue her brother's leg back together where she'd stabbed him. But she would take it.

She opened her mouth to say thank you, but instead, she blurted one more question. “When can I see him?”

73

Six months later…

Dr. Murasawa’s voice carried across the gathered crowd. Digitized through the loud speakers, it lost only a little of its usual comfort and softness. The sunny day helped deliver the happy news.

She’d taken over for Radnor, a radically different leader than the loud and booming man. But Cage and Joule both liked working for her.

“As many of you already know,” she told the crowd gathered in the field, “the ribbon cutting here is mostly symbolic. A good number of you have already been involved in the process of helping the solar array put power onto the grid. Thank you.”

She graciously waved a hand toward her left, where a handful of locals had chosen to stand by and be part of their little ceremony. Only it wasn’t little anymore. A large number of people from nearby Horton, Arab, and New Hope had turned up, packing the small, cleared space at the edge of the array field.

Cage was aware that Dr. Murasawa had been adamant that people would not be pressured to stand up at the ceremony. She wasn’t pushing any locals into it.

He saw Joule suppress a grin and knew that she felt she’d won. Jerry was standing to the far left, his hands clasped in front of him. It hadn't happened immediately. It had taken all of them learning a good spate of local diplomacy. Though Joule had tried to explain a lot of Jerry’s protests that she’d learned during the whole tornado run last fall, it had still been far more complicated than even she’d learned. Understanding what had bothered Jerry and the other locals so much about the incoming solar array had led to a great deal of compromise.

There were now programs in place in conjunction with the community center—a place the locals already trusted, unlike Helio Systems Tech. Dr. Murasawa had carefully carved inroads and taken the employees along with her.

It wasn’t easy. As Sarah had pointed out, it had taken Jerry a while to accept that the change was coming and that there was nothing he could do about it. He could fight the ocean or ride the waves. He could join in things like putting in a solar array, and maybe even cleaning up his own carbon footprint, or deal with the results of not doing it—which included the devastating tornadoes that had come through in a forty-eight-hour period last fall.

Newscasters nationwide had called the “flash weather event” shocking and bizarre. Fifteen different funnels, ranging from F1 to F5 had come through in two days. Joule had survived. So had Cage.

Others had not.

Helio Systems Tech had shut down for a while, and the local protesters had cheered as though they’d run the bad guys out of town. Cage had been pleased that at least Jerry hadn’t joined them and he credited Joule for that win. But the team hadn’t left. They'd gone back and re-crunched the data.

They calculated the odds that that this particular section of Alabama—which had previously been a low-level tornado zone—had suddenly become a hotspot. There was no predicting it, only planning for the probablities.

They’d decided that the strange, funnel-producing weather system had, in fact, been a freak event.

Cage didn't know if they'd be back next year to repair the array or not. They'd redesigned and redesigned and redesigned. Because, as had been pointed out early on by Jerry and the protesters, there was a need to protect the Alabama environment from the chemicals and pollutants inside the panels in case another twister passed through.

But thanks to Dr. Murasawa’s ingenuity and the local consultants she’d hired, the system was officially opening today to cheers. Most of the Helio Systems Tech people stood to one side, wearing their khaki pants and bright pink polo shirts. They all looked like Radnor, Cage thought, and maybe that was a fitting tribute.

He stood quietly while Dr. Murasawa invited the local mayors of the three nearby towns to