Charges (5 page)

He began searching for a flashlight. He had a feeling he was in for a very long night.

###

The commotion in the street finally began to ebb at around three in the morning. Despite everything, his Rolex still worked. When he checked out the living room window, all he saw was darkness broken here and there by the beams of flashlights or lanterns. He couldn’t tell exactly who was down there, but judging from their numbers, he thought they might be police or military. Across the street, One57 was a gigantic, dark monolith. A sizeable fire blazed in Central Park, and more raged in other parts of the city. But there were no sirens, no flashing strobes, no passing helicopters.

It was as if the city had been caught in some sort of weird void, where everything he had known had been transformed by the blackness and the writhing spectra in the sky. The aurora that had spread across New York continued to sparkle and shine, mostly green tinged with shoots of blue. Vincenzo no longer thought it looked beautiful. If anything, he viewed the aurora with a mixture of dread and distrust. The pretty light show would bring nothing good to the world.

To console himself, he ate one of the Cornish game hens. It was cold, and there was no way to warm it up, beyond lighting a fire and trying it the medieval way. But the last thing he wanted was to fill up the condo with smoke, so he just picked at the cold, slimy flesh of the small bird until there was nothing left. He chased it down with a still-cool beer from the refrigerator, and as he drank, he wondered when he would next be able to buy a six-pack of Anchor Steam at a convenience store. If he understood everything he had heard on the news, the aurora was actually the visual manifestation of the CMD hitting Earth’s atmosphere. Loaded with charged particles, it had turned the planet into one giant superconductor, frying virtually every electrical circuit in the city. Well, not everything. His wind-up flashlights still worked, as well as his trusty Mag-Lite. But his computer, his phone, his iPad, everything on that order of sophistication was fried. And probably, so were most of the appliances in the condo, though their deaths could have been caused by the sudden failure of the power grid.

With nothing else to do, Vincenzo wandered into the bathroom. When he turned on the tap in the sink, all it emitted was a throaty groan as air traveled through the network of pipes. With a sigh, he wet a toothbrush with a dab of bottled water and set about flossing and brushing his teeth. The sumptuously appointed master bathroom—complete with marble soaking tub and matching floor, walls, and countertops, glassed-in shower, and expensive, high-end toilet with a bidet—was so dark and shadowy without overhead lights that he could barely see his reflection in the huge mirror.

Before he decided what to do next, he needed to see just how bad things were. And that meant leaving the building.

4

Vincenzo’s legs burned, and his feet were sore from the trip down the stairs. His condominium was on the seventy-second floor, and it had been quite a walk. While some of the emergency lights in the stairwell were still operating, most of them had exhausted their batteries overnight. Those that remained provided only the most tepid of glows, and the fluorescent strips that marked the edges of the stairs had long since grown dark. Vincenzo was covered with sweat, and he thanked God that he’d had the foresight to bring down a small pack. At least he had some water with him, though he wished he’d brought along some Tylenol. He truly dreaded the return climb.

“Mister Vincenzo?”

Vincenzo turned to see Geraldo, one of the front desk employees. The short, burly man was dressed in dark slacks and a vest over a rumpled and sweat-stained white dress shirt. He was an affable man, always quick to help, who displayed a genuine earnestness Vincenzo thought had died in New York City a long time ago. Geraldo’s features were drawn and pale, and he looked eons older than his fifty-something years. Though obviously exhausted, he seemed hyper-alert, almost as if he was strung out on too much coffee.

“Geraldo, how’re you doing, man?” Vincenzo asked, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow. He had another thought. Metropolitan Tower was a black structure shrouded in glass. In the coming hours, the entire building would turn into an oven. That didn’t make the climb back to his residence any more appealing, and he wondered if he could manage to put it off until closer to nightfall.

“Hanging in there, sir. Hey, you climbed down all those stairs? In the
dark
?” Geraldo asked.

“You’re not going to tell me the elevators are working, are you?”

Geraldo managed a phantom smile. “No, sir. They’re most definitely not working.
Nothing’s
working, and no one has any answers.” He glanced at the small day pack. “You thinking of heading out somewhere, sir?”

Vincenzo jerked his thumb toward the lobby exit. “Going to take a walk around, get a feel of the lay of the land. Seems like things have changed a bit since yesterday.” He noticed that one of the lobby doors was a crazed spiderweb of cracks. He frowned. “So, what happened to the door?”

“We had a bit of trouble. After the lights went out, we had to lock up. We only opened up for residents, and last night, someone tried to bust through the doors with a trash can. Scared the hell out of everyone, but he didn’t get in.” He studied the doors. “Not sure what’s going to happen tonight. The cops, they’ve all disappeared. Firemen, too. And there’s no way to call anyone if something goes down, you know?”

Vincenzo looked around the wide lobby. Like the rest of the building, it seemed dark and unwelcoming. “Where’s everyone else? The rest of the guys?”

“Gone, sir. I’m it. Until someone else shows up.”

Vincenzo didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean, they’re gone?”

“They left as soon as the sun came up. Everyone. Housekeeping, security, doormen, both here and in the corporate tower. As far as I know, I’m the only one left. No contact with the building owners or the management company, so, uh…” Geraldo shrugged. “So I’m all that’s left of Metropolitan Tower’s staff, I guess.”

“Where do you live?”

“The Bronx, sir. But I’m not quite ready to walk home just yet. Though I am getting a little worried about my cat.”

“I’m sure your cat will be all right, Geraldo. Keep the faith, man. How long do you think you’ll be staying?”

Geraldo shook his head. “I don’t know. A bit longer, for sure.”

“Seen any of the other residents?”

“A few. One of the young men—you know Mister Cole, runs all those gyms downtown? Lives on thirty-one?”

“Afraid not.”

Geraldo waved the admission away. “Well, he went out at about five thirty. Came back a half hour later with a busted face. I tried to get him to stay down here so I could see about getting him some help, but he wasn’t having none of that. Went back up to his unit. I hope he’s okay. He could’ve died on his way up.”

“I didn’t trip over any corpses on the way down, so I’d say he made it.”

“Yeah, well, you might want to take it easy out there, sir. Midtown West isn’t what it used to be.”

Vincenzo nodded. He felt the same way, which was why he had his Beretta in a kidney holster, covered by his shirt and the backpack. He wouldn’t be winning any quick-draw contests, but if he needed it, he knew where to find it. For the first time since coming back to New York, he wished he had one of those small profile pistols that were more easily concealed. “Are the doors locked?”

“Yes, sir. They are.”

“Can you let me out? And how will I get back in if you’ve left?”

“I’m not leaving for the next couple of hours, sir. But if you like, I can give you a key to the revolving door, providing you don’t lose it.”

“That would be awesome, Geraldo. And no, I won’t lose it. And if someone takes me down, I’ll tell them it’s to One57. Consider it payback for taking away Metropolitan’s view of the park. How’s that?”

Geraldo smiled. “I like the way you think, Mister Vincenzo. You want to go out the front, or the back?”

“Is Fifty-Sixth Street any better?”

“No, sir. Both the same.”

“The front, then.”

“Hold on one second.” Geraldo ambled back to the lobby desk then returned a few moments later with a single key. He handed it to Vincenzo then led him to the lobby doors facing West Fifty-Seventh Street. After unlocking the undamaged door with another key, he slowly pushed it open.

Acrid smoke drifted into the lobby. Overhead, the long awning was torn in several places, and the red fabric whipped in the warming breeze. Vincenzo stepped outside cautiously, resisting the urge to reach around and shift the backpack to make his pistol more accessible.

“Be careful out there, sir,” Geraldo said. He then pulled the door closed and locked it.

Vincenzo shot him a thumbs-up, even though he didn’t feel particularly enthusiastic about being outside, then turned away from the door. He checked his watch: 6:01 a.m.

West Fifty-Seventh Street was a disaster zone. Trash lay all over the sidewalk: cast-aside water bottles, food packages, newspapers, shattered vodka bottles, and even a man’s shoe, the brown leather scuffed and worn. The black husks of two cars sat outside the Russian Tea Room, the upscale restaurant and exclusive venue next door to the Metropolitan, its own red awning half-burned away, doubtless a victim of the blaze that had consumed the two cars. Vincenzo thought he even saw some blood on the cement.

He turned right and made his way toward Sixth Avenue, his feet making crunching noises as grit snapped and popped beneath his running shoes. The intersection of Sixth and West Fifty-Seventh was full of dead cars.

An old man wandered through the vehicles, wearing a bemused expression. He nodded politely at Vincenzo. “Finally solved the traffic problem around here.” His voice seemed unusually loud in the morning stillness.

“Yeah,” Vincenzo said, crossing the intersection. He headed toward Fifth Avenue, the thoroughfare that served as the official divide between Manhattan’s east and west sides.

“Hey, you don’t want to go over there,” the man said.

Vincenzo stopped. “Why’s that?”

“Some sort of murder scene down there. Lots of mounted police and some detectives.” The old man pointed at a nearby UPS truck, its contents apparently still locked up safe inside. “Hop up on that bumper and take a look. See for yourself.”

As the man drew closer, Vincenzo stepped up on the truck’s bumper and looked eastward, down the length of West Fifty-Seventh Street. The added elevation did wonders, and Vincenzo saw two mounted cops sitting atop their tall horses. More horses were attached to flat carriages Vincenzo had never seen before; they certainly weren’t the ones that were used to haul tourists around Central Park. More uniformed police milled about as well, watching EMS and sanitation workers loading up the wagons. He wasn’t close enough to make out the faces of the people doing the work, but he could clearly see what they were doing in the growing light of dawn.
Bodies. They’re already loading up bodies.

A chill ran through him, and he found his thoughts turning to Los Angeles.
Jess and Benny, how are they? Are they safe? Did Grant manage to get to them?
The more he thought about it, the more agitated he became. He considered walking down to the intersection and asking the cops what was going on, but he didn’t want to get any closer to the grisly work going on down there.
Sure, he could make movies where the bodies were piled twenty high, but in real life? No, thanks.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

“The world ended last night,” the old man said. He wore oversized wire-rimmed glasses, and his head seemed too large for his body. He pulled a worn-looking green sweater tighter around his narrow shoulders. “And it’s still happening.”

“How so?”

The old man pointed up, and Vincenzo looked. Visible spectra still writhed in the brightening sky.

Earth was still being bombarded by countless charged particles that wreaked havoc with every electrical system on the planet.

“Things aren’t going to get much better anytime soon,” the old man commented.

“Yeah. You might be right about that.”

###

Vincenzo picked his way through the midtown area. Some places were clean and virtually untouched, where civility apparently still reigned. But only a block or two away, there would be substantial signs of distress: shattered shop windows, looted stores, vandalized cars. He saw a group of toughs who had apparently walked down from Harlem overnight making their way back uptown, carrying full backpacks. Two of them pulled a red wagon with two Samsung 3D flat screen televisions in it, and Vincenzo wondered what the hell they were going to do with them. Even if the systems hadn’t been trashed by the electromagnetic pulse, the majority of the city’s power grid was gone. Did they plan on storing the TVs someplace until the power came back?

As the morning matured, more pedestrians appeared, and with them, bicyclists. The cyclists darted down the streets, weaving around the stalled traffic. Several wore backpacks, and a few rode sturdy mountain bikes with saddle bags on them.

Vincenzo waved at one young man as he pedaled toward him. “Where you headed?”

“GWB,” the man said without stopping. He was gone before Vincenzo could ask for news, not that he felt the man had any to impart.

Vincenzo had already spoken to several people, and no one knew anything he didn’t. But the young biker’s answer caused Vincenzo to consider his situation further. The George Washington Bridge was quite a hike from where he currently stood, on Sixth Avenue and West Fiftieth Street. Without realizing it, he had been headed back toward his office, perhaps more out of instinct than design. It would take three hours to get to the bridge, but it was the only open air westward crossing. The Lincoln and Holland tunnels were closer, but he had no desire to march into their dark depths. Plus, they ran under the Hudson River. If there was no power for the pumps there, going below water level might not be wise.

Realizing there was nothing for him in midtown, Vincenzo turned and began walking back up Sixth Avenue. He would head back to the southern edge of Central Park and see what the lay of the land was before pressing on farther.

###

As he drew nearer to Central Park, he heard sounds of civilization, or more specifically, the noises of many citizens. And he heard something he hadn’t realized he’d ever wanted to hear again: an electronically amplified voice. The sound drew him like a magnet, and Vincenzo hurried up Sixth Avenue until he made it to the extra-tony boulevard known as West Fifty-Ninth Street, or Central Park South. The street ran crosswise across the city at the base of Central Park. Real estate there was at its most prime and consistently fetched some of the highest prices in New York City—and in the world. He was joined by dozens of other people who poured out of the condo and co-op buildings on the street, all just as hungry for news as he was. In moments, he was in the nucleus of a jostling crowd. No one was being too pushy, avoiding confrontation for the moment, but he had an uncomfortable flashback to his walk uptown yesterday. The pall of dread was still in the air, but it didn’t seem as desperate as it had earlier. Instead, there was a sense of expectancy. Someone was broadcasting over a loudspeaker, which meant someone had news, and news meant everyone would soon know who was in charge and who would be solving their problems.