Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack) (72 page)

“They’re going back!” Carol said, as much to herself as to Bill. “They’re going back into the hole!”

As a cheer roared from the crowd and she pressed forward for a better look, the earth began to shake. Cheers turned to screams as people were knocked off their feet. Carol’s hoarse shout of alarm rose with the others as she was hurled to the pavement with Bill atop her.

From the blown-out windows of the top floor, Sylvia watched the pandemonium below with growing alarm. She clutched the sill with one hand and Jeffy with the other as the building shook and creaked and groaned around them.

An earthquake! she thought. She remembered the 2011 tremor, but this was much worse.

And there, down on the near edge of the Sheep Meadow, the earth was cracking open.

Another hole!

This was it, then. The growing light, the sense of impending victory, the return of the bugs en masse to the original hole—all a false hope, an empty promise. A new hole, unafraid of the light, was opening closer to the building. What new horror was going to issue from that?

The sudden changes could mean only one thing: Glaeken had failed.

The tremors worsened as a deep rumble issued from the first hole in the center of the Sheep Meadow. Clouds of what looked like dust or smoke were spewing from the opening. Sylvia reached for the field glasses and focused on the hole. The edges looked ragged—they seemed to be crumbling, breaking away, sliding into the opening, choking it.

Yes! It was closing! And below—she shifted the glasses—what was happening with the new hole?

But it wasn’t a hole yet. Maybe it never would be. More like a depression, a cave-in of some sort.

The tremors stopped.

Then silence. Sylvia lowered the field glasses and paused, listening. Silence like no silence she could ever recall. Not a bird, not an insect, not a breeze was stirring. She could hear the rush of her own blood through her arteries, but nothing else. All the world, all of nature paused, frozen, stunned, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

It lasted one prolonged agonized moment. And then, for the second time tonight, the light began to fade.

The silence was shattered by a burst of cries of renewed terror from below, then the chant began again. She heard Ba begin to repeat the words behind her. Sylvia joined him, whispering the litany as she raised the glasses and scanned the roiling crowd for Carol or Bill or Jack—anyone she knew.

The chant was failing this time. Despite thousands of throats shouting the words at the tops of their lungs, the light continued to fade.

We’ve lost!

Somehow in the dying light she managed to pick out Carol’s familiar figure at the edge of the new hole, or depression, or wherever it was. She wanted to shout down to her to get away from there. That was where the new threat would arise. But Carol was right on the edge, pointing down at the bottom of the depression. She was pacing back and forth, hugging Bill, hugging everyone within reach. What—?

Sylvia refocused on the bottom of the pit. Something moving there, struggling in the loose dirt. She strained to see in the last of the light.

A man. A man with red hair. And another man, helping him, pulling him free.

Glaeken? Jack? Alive? But … if they’d survived down there, it could only mean—

Suddenly Ba was at her side, pointing across the park toward the East Side.

“Look, Missus!
Look!
”

In all their years together, she had never heard such naked excitement in his voice. She looked.

The crowd below couldn’t see it yet, but from this elevation there could be no doubt. Sylvia didn’t need the field glasses. Straight ahead, down at the far end of one of the streets, a bright orange glow was firing the eastern sky, reaching for them along the concrete canyons that ran to the East River.

Manhattanhenge.

“The sun, Missus! The sun is rising!”

PART FOUR

DAWN

FRIDAY

In The Beginning …

Manhattan

Carol stood on Glaeken’s rooftop in the bright morning sunlight and wished she had the nerve to remove her blouse. Jack and Bill had pulled off their shirts as soon as they’d stepped out the door. Carol envied the males their casual ability to expose so much surface area to the warm light pouring through the cloudless sky.

Why not me? she thought, reaching for the top buttons on her blouse. After all we’ve been through together, what difference would it make?

But she stopped after two buttons. If it was just Bill, maybe. But not with Jack here.

I know I’ve been changed by all this—but not that much. An uptight Catholic girl still lived somewhere within her.

“Still hard to believe it’s over,” Jack said.

Bill stared out over the city. “What a mess.”

Carol followed his gaze. There didn’t seem to be an unbroken window in the city. Ruined buildings were everywhere, some torn apart by gravity holes, some crushed by debris falling from other gravity holes. Above them, pillars of smoke rose from fires still raging here and there about the boroughs. Below, a rare car picked its way through the cluttered streets. Dazed-looking people wandered the sidewalks or stood around the huge depression that only hours ago had been the Sheep Meadow hole.

“It’s not all bad,” Jack said. “When was the last time midtown air smelled this clean?”

He seemed a new man, energized. She knew why: The shortwave had come alive. He’d contacted his loved ones.

Bill nodded. “You’ve got a point. I’m just wondering how we’ll ever rebuild this.”

Jack made a face. “Who said we should?”

“We have to,” Carol said. “We now have a chance to start from scratch and do it right this time.”

Bill nodded. “Or at least give it our best shot.”

“Oh, wow!” Jack said through a laugh. “Polly, meet Anna. Anna, meet Polly.”

Carol turned to him. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Pie in the sky. Sure, there’ll be lots of talk about a new world and a new brotherhood, but believe me it won’t be long before we’re all back to the same old shit: The truly capable people, the ones you’d be proud to call leader, will be devoting all their time to the actual rebuilding, while the usual crew of blowhard leeches incapable of building anything will be pretending to lead while they position themselves for a driver seat once things get rolling again.”

“I disagree,” Carol said. “I think we can and will do better. And as for leaders…” She gestured below. “Do you think anyone down there knows what you two did?”

“No,” Jack said sharply. He suddenly seemed uneasy. He began slipping back into his shirt. “And let’s leave it that way.”

“Don’t want to be a hero?” Bill said, smiling.

“I don’t even want to be
noticed.
” He turned and started walking away.

“Leaving?” Carol said.

“Yeah. Soon as I find a car with gas I’m heading out to Pennsylvania.” A light glowed in his eyes. “Abe’s bringing Gia and Vicky back. I’m going to provide the escort.”

“Good luck,” Bill said.

Carol watched Jack go. As he reached the stairs, a little girl, maybe seven or eight with curly blond hair, approached him. She held a puppy. How on Earth had she got up here?

Jack skidded to a stop before her. They stared at each other. Jack spoke, the child nodded. Then Jack did the strangest thing: He dropped to one knee before her, wrapped her in his arms, and hugged her.

“Do you see that?” Carol said.

Bill nodded, frowning. “Are those tears in his eyes?”

Carol was pretty sure they were. “I wonder who she is?”

As she watched Jack wipe his eyes, something swooped through the air and landed on the little girl’s head: a pale blue parakeet.

Carol heard Jack cry, “Parabellum?” then laugh. “I’ll be damned!”

He took the child by the hand and led her, the dog, and the bird downstairs.

“What was that all about?”

Carol shook her head. “I don’t think that’s the little girl he’s been talking about.”

“No,” Bill said. “Something different—something very unchildlike about that child.”

“Whoever she is, he seems very protective. Heaven help anyone who tries to harm her.”

Bill slipped his arm around her waist and turned her toward the ruined cityscape before them.

“I doubt heaven helps anybody.”

“Just a figure of speech. But I do wonder who or what will get the credit for the sunrise.”

Bill laughed. “I heard a bunch of guys singing ‘Here Comes the Sun’ over and over. I’ll bet that becomes a new religious hymn. But you’re right. A whole new mythology could rise out of this. A new round of sun worship, that’s for sure. It’ll be interesting to see what develops.”

“But whatever it is, it will be wrong. They’ll be looking for some deity to praise and thank.”

“That’s nothing new.”

“But what about you? You deserve part of the credit.”

Bill shook his head. “No. I just ran an errand.” He looked into her eyes. “You’re the one who found the real key and put it to use. You saw that the answer was inside us rather than outside.”

“It’s always been that way, hasn’t it? We’ve always been in charge but we’ve never taken control. We just let ourselves get pushed this way and that.”

“Fear is like a disease, and I guess some of us have better immune systems than others. Sometimes we need a little help from others, but we all have the power to step aside and say I’m not going to be a part of this anymore.”

She locked her arms around his waist and smoothed his wind-ruffled gray hair.

“Do you think things will be different?”

He shook his head. “I like to think I’m more optimistic than Jack, but I fear he’s right. Nothing changes.”

“That’s not true, Bill. I’m changed, you’re changed, we’ve all been changed by this.”

“Especially Glaeken.”

Yes, she thought with a pang of anguish. Especially poor Glaeken. What would he do, where would he go when Magda was gone?

And Sylvia and Jeffy—what about them? And Nick … would he ever recover?

So many questions, so many uncertainties.

She locked her arms around Bill’s waist and snuggled against him.

At least there were a few things of which she could be sure—her love for Bill, for one, and the certainty that no one alive today would ever again take sunrise for granted.