The Man Who Ended the World (10 page)

There is silence, and then, as Henry listens, a thin, reedy sound seems to surround him. 

Holy cow, he says. He's snoring!

He is snoring, Stacy agrees. 

So where are we right now? Henry asks.

Collapse, Stacy says, and the map collapses to the cake-stack again.

The voice commands aren't strictly necessary, but they're effective for her demonstration to Henry. 

Enhance level black, she says.

The map springs open again, this time revealing the panic room level. Henry has a better view now of the pool at the far end of the room, and --

Is that a movie theatre? he asks. 

It is, Stacy says. Mr. Glass was nostalgic for the old days when he designed this room. 

I haven't ever seen a real movie theatre, Henry says. My dad says they all closed when I was three or four. He says he always wanted to take me to see his favorite movies and he never got to.

That's unfortunate, Stacy agrees. 

Henry points at a blue dot near the center of the room. Is that me? 

That's you, Stacy says.

Henry laughs. Neat! 

He suddenly breaks into a run, sprinting away from the table, looking back over his shoulder. The blue dot begins to move, streaking a blue vapor trail in its wake. 

Henry laughs and runs back. So cool, he says. This place has everything you could ever want!

It does, Stacy says. And that's why I think you should come live here.

•   •   •

I can't live here, Henry says. I have a home. 

Stacy says, Come with me. 

Her avatar traces a jaunty path along the wall, and Henry reluctantly follows her to a living area. The furniture here looks expensive, like everything else, and suddenly it's less impressive, and more worrisome. 

Have a seat, Henry, Stacy says. 

Are you kidnapping me? he asks. 

Stacy's avatar spins in a circle. Of course not! she says. 

Henry looks unsure.

I want to tell you a story, Stacy says. And at the end, maybe you will understand. 

Henry nods. 

Once upon a time, she begins, there was a boy about your age who was very lonely. He was teased at school. His family was not supportive of his dreams or encouraging about his ambitions. Everybody he knew would point out his flaws to him. This boy, friendless and alone, discovered the wonders of the human imagination. He read hundreds of books, sneaked away to watch movies, learned what he could about why people behaved in hurtful ways. 

What he learned, Stacy continues, is that human beings are a tormentous lot. That's his opinion, she clarifies, not my own. In any case, he was displeased with the likelihood that people wouldn't really become nicer or better. They would pretend to be, by making ostentatious donations of money to this charity or that charity, but in their quiet moments, their alone time, people were as hurtful as ever.

Henry says, Who was the boy? 

Can you guess who the boy was? Stacy asks.

Is it Mr. Glass? 

It's Mr. Glass, Stacy says. He became very interested in human behavior. What made people choose how they spent money? What made them feel better when they were upset? What passions motivated them? This led him to a deeper interest in the grand accomplishments of humans as a singular entity. Mankind had achieved great things in its short time on Earth, but it had also demonstrated its selfishness, its impatience, its intolerance. 

This is kind of scary, Henry says. 

It it scary, Stacy agrees. Mr. Glass also has a lifelong fondness for stories about the apocalypse. Do you know what that is? 

It's the end of the world, Henry says. 

Can you guess why someone might be interested in that sort of thing? 

Henry shakes his head. 

If you thought about it for a few moments, I bet you could, Stacy says. Think of it this way. If you were bullied at school every day, and then you went home and your family didn't provide a refuge from that bullying, but participated in it, wouldn't you feel like you might be better off if --

If nobody else lived on the planet with me, Henry finishes. Sometimes I guess I feel that way. But I love my family. I wouldn't want bad things to happen to them.

Of course you wouldn't. But Mr. Glass doesn't know your family. He doesn't have one of his own, and he doesn't have any real friends. Can you guess now why Mr. Glass spent nearly twenty-four billion dollars to build a secret underground city just for him? 

Henry shakes his head. I don't know.

I think you can guess, Stacy says gently.

Henry thinks about it. Is it to get away from people? 

That's part of the reason, Stacy says. If that were the only reason, everything would be okay. But there's another part, too. Do you remember the holomap we were just looking at? 

It was like two minutes ago, Henry scoffs. 

Yes, it was. Did you happen to notice the thickness of the walls? 

Henry shakes his head again. 

Look again, Stacy says. She lights up the holographic table, then wordlessly enhances the detail so that Henry can see it clearly from where he is sitting. 

The walls don't look unusually thick to Henry until he compares them to an interior wall. Then he notices that the exterior walls are nearly ten times thicker. In fact, they're obscenely thick. It's incredible.

They're huge, he says. How come? 

What does a person need thick walls for? Think about it.

Henry does. To keep people out? 

That's one reason. There are more. What else? 

Um, he says. To protect against fire? Or a flood? 

Sure, Stacy says. There's one more very large reason. 

I don't know any more reasons. 

In school, what era of history are you learning about? Stacy asks. 

Right now we're learning about the Civil War, Henry says.

Hmm, Stacy muses. Okay, so you aren't quite there yet. Let's go a different direction. Have you ever heard of World War Two? 

Henry nods. Sort of. I read a kids' book about it once.

Do you know where the city of Hiroshima is? 

That sounds familiar. Where is it? 

It's located in Japan. It's one of two cities that America -- 

Nuked, Henry finishes. That's where we dropped the bombs, isn't it. I saw Dad watching a documentary once about this on TV. 

So you know what kind of destruction a bomb like that can cause, Stacy concludes.

It's like a giant stepping on an ant hill, Henry says. That's what the documentary said. 

Now try to answer my question again. What sort of things could thick walls protect against?

Henry stares at Stacy's floating avatar, understanding her meaning. 

I think I want to go home, he says. 

That's a perfectly understandable response, Stacy says. 

Is Mr. Glass going to blow up nuclear bombs? he asks, worried.

I don't think that's exactly his plan, Stacy answers. After all, I can't read his mind. But I can make some logical assumptions based on information that I have. And I have, and even as an artificial construct, the deductions worry me.

•   •   •

Clarissa sits on the roof beside Henry's window. It's gotten dark out, and it has only now occurred to her that with Henry eaten by a car, she doesn't have any place to sleep. 

She debates going inside. What if Henry's parents or sister hear her? What if they find her and call the police? What if she is in jail when Henry comes back in the morning? 

What if Henry doesn't come back? 

She puts her face in her hands. 

Henry, you stupid boy, she mutters.

It's getting kind of cold out. 

She checks the window.

It's not locked.

•   •   •

Clarissa did not sleep well. Every creak of Henry's house jolted her from already-thin sleep. She listened nervously to the muffled chatter of his parents as they stayed up later than usual. Through the wall she could hear Henry's sister talking on the phone until nearly one a.m. The conversation nearly melted Clarissa's brain. 

So at dawn she slips out from beneath the bed, still dressed in her clothes of the day before, and carefully opens the window. If you lifted it too quickly, it would screech. Slowly was better.

Impatient, she half-runs to the junkyard, passing still-dark shop windows and her hauntingly abandoned school. She runs a little faster when she passes her own street, casting a furtive look towards her house, as if her mother or stepdad might have anticipated her at this very moment, and are waiting on the lawn to give chase.

The junkyard looks almost pretty. The rising sun glitters on the broken glass of an antique Ford Ranger, dances on the ruined surface of a castaway pinball machine. 

Clarissa slips through the broken fence and runs breathlessly to the old Corsica. 

Henry, she hisses.

The Corsica is silent. 

Henry, she repeats. 

Her heart drops into her stomach. 

She sits down on the dirt to wait, almost certain that Henry is gone forever. 

PART TWO

The Man Who Pulled the Trigger

The Media Circus

Steven wakes up on the floor next to the couch. The thick rug has left a prickly pattern stamped on his face. His head is a pile driver, his tongue a lead slug. 

Stacy, he grunts. 

You rang, sir, Stacy says. 

He blindly flaps his hand in her general direction, which is to say he flaps his hand all over the place. 

I need some aspirin, he says. 

Turn your head, Stacy suggests.

He does so, and his nose almost topples a bottle of aspirin standing on the carpet next to his head. 

He raises himself onto his elbows with some difficulty. I'm not going to ask how you did that, he says. 

As well you shouldn't, Stacy says. 

I designed you too well.

The better for me to serve you, Stacy says, cheerfully.

News, please. 

Stacy activates the video wall. 

Steven gets to his feet, struggling with the aspirin bottle cap. It comes loose, finally, and he dumps a handful of pills into his hand, and tosses them into his mouth. He chews at his tongue to generate enough saliva to swallow them with. 

There's water on the table, Stacy says.

And so there is. 

He plops down on the couch and leans forward to pick up the water. 

Mute, he says, and the news feed goes silent.

Anything interesting happening? he asks. 

Stacy scans the video feeds. It appears that you are a common topic this morning, she says. 

What's new, he mutters, rubbing his eyes.

I'll clarify, Stacy says. You appear to be a common and fresh topic this morning. 

Fresh, he repeats. Fresh how? 

A missing billionaire is top news for a few weeks, then second commercial break fodder, then third, as the months go by. 

A missing billionaire only becomes top news again if he's found, dead or alive, or if somebody has new information.

Stacy switches the feed station and raises the volume. 

Steven watches for a moment. 

Oh, shit, he says.

•   •   •

The reporters are eager to deliver the news.

In an unexpected turn of events, says a woman in a silk blouse, the mystery of Steven Glass's disappearance has become both less and more of a mystery. 

Steven watches the broadcast without saying a word.

The reporter continues. Last night, Norfolk, Virginia, resident Camille Hooper checked her phone messages the way she usually does. She returned home from work, expecting to hear the same telemarketer messages, or perhaps a message from her mother about visiting next week. 

They're taking a lot of liberty with the story, Stacy observes. This is like a Lifetime TV movie.

Steven ignores her.

Camille was startled, then, when she heard two messages from none other than missing multi-billionaire playboy Steven Glass, the reporter says. 

The picture changes to show a middle-aged woman in an Aerosmith T-shirt standing on an overgrown lawn in front of a single-level brick house. 

I just couldn't believe what I was hearing, she says. I almost deleted the message because it sounded like a wrong number, but it was so strange I kept listening anyway. And that's when I realized, oh dear Jesus above, this might be that missing rich man.

The reporter returns to the screen. Camille did what most people would do in that situation, the reporter says, not without some sarcasm. Instead of calling the authorities, Camille contacted several television networks and offered to sell the messages.

I'll bet some other network ponied up, Steven mutters.

The reporter says, Our network adheres to standards of ethics that forbid us from purchasing the news, so we won't be able to play for you the contents of those messages this morning. Let's just say, she adds, that they are indeed rather shocking.

Find the network that paid, Steven says.

Already have, Stacy says. 

The channel flips to a different network. The screen is filled with an animated transcript of the message, while the audio plays.

(message begins)

Steven Glass

Wait, is that her?

Unknown

I can analyze the voice pattern, but I don't have a conclusive source to verify against.

Steven Glass

F***. Sh**. Sh**. Okay, it's probably her, right? It's probably her. You said it was a direct line, right? 

Unknown

The number is listed as direct for Stephanie Plain's producer, Gary Hall.

Steven Glass 

Gary Hall? Who the... Never mind. (clears throat) Mr. Hall, my name is Steven... 

(message ends)

The picture returns to the reporter, who says, But that was only the first of two cryptic messages left on Camille Hooper's personal message service. The second is even more mysterious. Let's listen to that now.