Breakers (34 page)

Walt scowled down the gloomy tunnel. The old man was ready to die. Probably, he was just as ready to seize command if Walt decided to turn back or if the aliens persisted in staying beyond their reach. He supposed they were all doomed anyway; whether they died tomorrow or two years from now, there was no stopping the enemy. Otto was too war-sure. David, too theoretical; Anna, too scattered; Raymond and Mia, too—domestic. They'd killed a few aliens together, sure, but it was too fantastical to go on.

Something was coming. After moving in together after college, Vanessa had adopted a six-week-old chihuahua, an all-black female with floppy bat ears and round black eyes. He'd resisted the move, as much as he could—she'd brought it home without a word of warning, walking through the door with a velvety little thing that could hardly run without falling down—but had wound up serving as its primary caregiver on the long nights while she auditioned, rehearsed, then unwound in a Village bar. That meant housebreaking. He laid down newspapers, even the diaper-like puppy pads that were supposed to convince dogs to go in one spot, but on countless occasions he looked up from a Mets article on his laptop to find the little dog squatting on the middle of the carpet, urine dribbling from its vagina, its black eyes so blankly stupid he wanted to crush the thing in his hands until it stopped squealing. His anger was so thorough, so mind-erasing, he had to count out loud until it boiled away.

Here they were, six little puppies piddling across Los Angeles. The force that smashed them would be furious.

* * *

It began to rain. It continued to rain. It rained until water spilled down the subway steps and sluiced onto the tracks, forcing them deeper into the tunnels. They jugged all the water they could, took impromptu showers with soap and shampoo looted from the smashed-out CVS on the corner. David constructed an elaborate filtration device from charcoal, sand, and a trash can with a drain punched through its side. Anna wandered back from a midnight run to Home Depot to seed carrots and lettuce in the sidewalk planter. Otto watched with mustached disapproval from the bottom of the steps where he spent every waking minute ensuring he'd see the aliens before they saw him.

Walt doubted the man had to worry. They hadn't seen alien foot patrols for three weeks. Even the aerial presence had lessened, as if the invaders were equally discouraged by the ceaseless rain. Walt had waited for them to relax their guard or for another strategy to emerge, but there existed a hypothetical point where waiting would backfire—when reinforcements would arrive from the stars, or the aliens began breeding, or humanity simply lost the numbers and will to fight back. He wandered the platforms, flashlight in hand, in search of ideas. Instead, he turned a corner and found Mia hastily wrapping a towel around her lithe, damp, candle-shadowed body.

Water dripped from her dark hair. "You'd think I could find some privacy in the LA subway even
before
everyone else died."

"Didn't know this was the ladies' room."

"Now that you do, will that make you more or less likely to come back?"

"I'd rather not start making enemies with humans, too."

"Sounds smart." She slicked back her hair, pattering water on the concrete. "What are you doing down here?"

He kept his eyes on her face. "Thinking."

"Well, sorry to interrupt you."

"Who says I stopped?"

She smiled, eyebrows puzzled. "When I start shivering in a few seconds, it's cold, not because—"

Footsteps rasped down the platform. Adrenaline jolted through Walt's solar plexus—he envisioned driving his flashlight into the alien's throat—but then a candle wobbled into view, followed by Raymond. He frowned at Mia's towel, the bucket of soap and water.

"Need a hand?"

She glanced over her shoulder. "He got lost."

"I know where I am," Walt said. "It's just not where I meant to be."

"Okay," Raymond smiled, confused.

Walt waved and turned down the tunnel, afflicted by the sudden need to jerk off. It was past midnight, but Otto was still on watch behind the newspaper dispensers he'd fortified at the base of the stairs. Rain punished the streets. Through the screen of mist, the mile-wide lights of the mothership hung to the west, implacable behind the black swirl of clouds. Walt went behind the counter of the CVS, where he had just enough light to complete his business, then went back into the tunnels to tell the others the ship had come back.

"About time," Otto said.

David ran his finger down the ridge of his ear. "What does this change?"

"I'm sure they'll be texting me that info any second," Walt said.

"I'm ready to go," Raymond said. "Just let us know what we need to do."

What they needed to do was watch. That was the whole strategy: minimize risk while grinding away. In that vein, they watched from the rooftops in the foggy night, rain thumping the tarps they carried for cover, and returned to the tunnels half an hour before dawn. Otto took the bathroom mirror from the CVS, carefully smashed it in half, and left the shards at the top entrance, standing the largest piece upright. He settled in down the stairs and watched the reflected street through his binoculars. Late in the afternoon, he woke Walt from a platform nap. The patrols were back.

"They can track cars really well," Raymond said. "We can drive one a few blocks, pull over and set up down the street, and see who comes out to play."

Otto smirked. "Good luck finding a battery that isn't deader than Ethel Merman."

"Who?"

"Could work," Walt said. "Any idea how big the blast radius is on their bombs?"

"Under a block." Anna sketched an intersection in the dust, circled a quarter of it. "I spent a while in San Francisco on my way down. Ran with these soldiers for a week or so. Crazy crew. When they weren't having orgies on top of Coit Tower, they were strolling over the hills with SAMs on their shoulders. Eventually, they all got killed, mostly in bombings that were hot and awful, but wouldn't frizzle your hair from a block away."

"Still a variable," Walt said. "A bad one."

"We haven't done this before," Raymond said. "They'll think we're from out of town."

He didn't like it. He didn't trust cars. Maybe that was just the New Yorker in him. "Find something we can drive."

Otto insisted on aiding Raymond's search, likely because he'd die of withdrawals if he didn't get behind the wheel and under the hood of something stat. He returned equally proud and ashamed of his find: an old-model Tempo, paint flaking from its roof, hood, and doors, one of which was crumpled by a generous dent.

Otto toweled oil from his knuckles. "Your power locks don't power, your automatic seatbelts would earn you a ticket in 48 states, and from the rattle I'm guessing your catalytic's been taken behind the barn and shot years ago. But it runs."

He'd jammed it in neutral so they could push it down to Santa Monica Boulevard without turning over the engine and risking an early visit from alien fliers. The rest of the team gathered up lasers, bows, and pistols, swords, and hammers for emergencies. Once they were ready, Walt ran them through the plan a second time: David in the crow's-nest, spotting. Himself and Mia holed up a few blocks down, lasers ready. Otto and Anna another block further. Raymond, driving, would roll past, park three blocks past Anna and Otto, and run back to join them. If nothing came by to investigate within twenty minutes, they'd relocate their shooters down the street and try again.

In the street, the rain sifted down in tiny specks just like it had in New York, like dust in an afternoon sunbeam, the kind of more-than-drizzle that would take forever to soak your clothes but leaves your skin slick and cold in seconds. Despite that and the late December date, it wasn't truly freezing. Winter and midnight and the worst LA could offer was a chill. These people hadn't known how good they had it.

A scout ship keened from miles away, lost in the charcoal skies. They took turns pushing the car, two on the bumper with one at the wheel. The remainder watched the clouds and the street. The gutters were clogged and gray. The ankles of Walt's pants grew sodden, clinging to his legs.

They double-parked beside a blue Civic with a skeleton behind the windshield. David started up the stairwell to an office roof. Otto jogged off to scout the street. The dome light flipped on when Raymond opened the door. He stopped halfway into the seat, teeth clenched, leg jutting from the car.

Mia started forward. "Let me help."

"I've got it." He didn't have it. He struggled and wiggled, hanging from the door frame, but when he tried to swing his leg into the car, he closed his eyes and went pale. "Give me a minute."

"Hell no." Walt leaned in to pull him from the car. "You can't be gimping it up if they send a jet on the way. Driver's got to get out of the blast radius the instant he shuts off the car."

"Or she," Mia said.

Raymond stumbled from the car. "No way."

"Like it's so much safer to hide in the rain waiting to shoot Cthulhu's bastard sons with a laser gun?"

Raymond glanced at Walt. Walt shrugged. "If there were kids here, I'd let the kids fight, too."

"I don't like it," Raymond said.

Mia reached for his elbows. "If we can't do this all the way, we shouldn't be here at all."

Raymond leaned in close to her and said something too soft to hear. When they broke, Mia slung herself behind the wheel and poked at the controls until the wipers swished rain from the windshield. She turned the key. The engine kicked over, idling with a metallic rattle. Exhaust wafted into the dank air. Mia turned off the car. Walt could no longer hear the keening of the scout. The dark, rain-slicked streets looked alien, a gray netherworld from a primal past or an exhausted future. He suddenly wanted to leave. The street, the city as well. His skin prickled.

Otto ambled back to the group, rifle pouched in the crook of his arm. "All clear."

Walt gazed down the street, waiting for a sign that wouldn't come. If he'd been on his own, he would have walked away.

"Walt?" David said over the walkie-talkie, infuriating him instantly—they were reserved for emergencies, who knew whether the aliens could pick up their signal— "I think something's coming."

Clouds flowed inland, black and thick. At first Walt thought his ears were making up the sound, giving themselves something to hear besides the spatter of rain from the eaves of empty bars and Thai joints and dress shops. Then a ship slashed below the clouds, furls of vapor trailing in its stream. Down street, it braked sharply and turned on its tail.

He blinked. "Run."

"Get away from the car!" Mia turned the key, gunned forward on screeching tires. Raymond cried out. The car jolted forward and the alien vessel screamed back to meet it. Light flared from the ship's belly. Mia dove from the car into the street, rolling on the wet pavement, elbows raised to shield her face.

The street ahead became a white sun. Walt lost himself in heat and light and sound.

27

Raymond's ears rang. His head thumped. His skin stung. His nerves were a burning web of numb fire. Smoke hazed the street. Bits of falling rock clinked on pavements and parked cars. Someone was screaming. He couldn't feel his feet. A round, smoldering crater bridged the street ahead. The car was gone. So was Mia.

Someone grabbed his arm. Walt. "Come on!"

"Where's Mia?"

"It's making another pass. We have to go."

Raymond staggered forward, but Walt's arm clung to him like a wet rope. "Okay. I'll just get Mia."

That rope-like force tugged him back from the crater. Mouth gaping, David spilled from the office doors into a scree of shattered glass. Anna goggled at the sky. Otto gave them a blank look and sprinted down the cross street. Walt pulled Raymond after the old man.

Otto swerved alongside the shelter of the buildings. Raymond's leg ached. He still couldn't see Mia. Puddles splashed around his shoes. A jet hummed way up in the sky. A human jet? Why would a human jet have bombed them? Were they killing everything that moved? His left cheek was warm and tingling. He tasted briny metal.

His existence seemed to blink off for a few mnutes. Then he was down in the dark, candles flickering over the grimy tiles of the subway, seated on the platform. He stood, leg twingeing. Otto muttered with Walt across the way. Raymond limped toward him. The skinny stick of shit barely had time to flinch before Raymond punched him in the eye. Walt's head snapped back. Wordless, he bounced to his feet, jabbed Raymond in the nose, and doubled him over with another strike to the stomach. Wheezing, Raymond plowed his shoulder into Walt's midsection. The thin man jolted into the concrete.

"You dumb shits!" Otto's heavy hands pawed them apart. Walt wriggled against the old man's granite grasp, eyes fiery windows in the blank wall of his face.

"You killed her!" Raymond bucked his shoulders. "You put her in that car!"

"I sure did."

He blinked. "Then you killed her!"

"Aliens killed her."

"On
your
orders."

Walt just nodded, eyes dimming. Water trickled down the tunnel. Raymond tensed.

"She saved us," Otto said in his ear. "Do you understand that?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The car was the target. She hadn't hauled ass away from us, we'd all be belly-up."

"I watched from the roof." David's eyes were sunken, dark. "I didn't think any of you had survived."

Otto's hand was hot on his shoulder. He would have killed Walt if that grip weren't there, leeching away his rage, a meaty, dangling lamprey. Raymond's knees went out. He sat down hard, a tangle of legs. His howls echoed down the empty tunnel. Anna's eyes bulged. Otto shuffled. Then Raymond was crying too hard to scream, his ribs bouncing against the cool stone, tears and snot slicking his tipped face; soon, he was too tired to do anything but lie still and breathe and breathe and breathe.

By the time he finished they were gone. Raymond relit a candle and rose, shaky and strangely relaxed. His feet moved on their own. Otto and Walt murmured to each other down the platform; further below, he heard snoring. He watched himself walk up the dust-colored steps past posters of dead rappers promoting vodka and of movies that had never made it to public screens. The air was thick like a bathroom after the hot showers he no longer had. He smelled mold and washed-out urine.