Somehow, Sarah wasn't surprised to find Simon on the roof. She'd had the idea to go there herself, and for the past week they'd been thinking a lot of the same thoughts. Today, these thoughts were that there would be no escape from this God-forsaken planet. The bombs were coming and there was nothing they could do.
"Hey," she whispered, sitting down beside him on the edge of the roof. "How are you coping?"
"How do you think?"
"I think you're afraid. We all are."
"You've got that one right."
"And I would understand if you were also... angry with us."
"Angry with you? No. I practically invited myself on this trip, I shouldn't blame you. I do, but I shouldn't. I mean - of course I want to be with my family - I'm sorry. This is kind of hard to take in."
"It's ok. I'm having trouble with it myself. I just wish there was something we could do. Build ourselves a spaceship."
"We could live on the moon."
"I hear Mars is lovely this time of year."
"Holiday home on the sun."
"Hunting lodge on Pluto."
"Just a little house. Not too big. Just us."
"Fill it with children... not our children! Just, you know, kids."
"Laughing and playing."
Simon closed his eyes, and allowed himself to drift away to the world of this beautiful dream. Sarah was glad he was cheered up, she considered it a small victory. Since the news of the missiles in Korea came, they'd all been glued to the television. The TV had gone off air now: the bombs had been launched from both sides, and the important people were all down in the shelters.
The house they had rented for the summer had no such luxuries. There was no basement, and chances of survival were minimal. Of course, the explosions would be mostly in America and China, but they were close enough to London to be definitely killed. The only choice was between now and later.
Wordlessly, they had both chosen now. They didn't have the patience for cancer, or horrendous nuclear disfigurement. They would go out watching the sunset.
Simon didn't say it, but Sarah knew what he was thinking. He was thinking of his mother, in London, desperately making panicked phone calls from the Commons, alternately to the dead line of their own phone, and to Washington and Beijing, pleading with them to reconsider, to think of the children. To remember their grand plans for peace, disarmament, a war fought only on an economic battlefield. The claims that they had learned the lessons of the past, and would never allow another true world war. A time would come when she gave up and took her place in the shelter. He was thinking of his father, who would be comforting the twins in their hotel in Cornwall, hidden in some tunnel, trying to pretend it was all a game.
Sarah thought of her parents, at home. They'd be in the basement, missing their children. Her father would place a protective arm around her mother's shoulder, and tell her that God would keep them safe. She thought of her brother downstairs, fighting with the phone, still clinging to the desperate hope that he could fix it. Then he'd give up, but stay down a little longer. They had about an hour: he knew that they needed time.
Michael didn't want to give up, but he decided that he had to. He knew technology, and he knew when technology was broken. Their phone was in perfect working order, but the power was dead. Impending nuclear warfare would tend to cause a bit of infrastructure damage to a country.
