Circuit Of Heaven (44 page)

To the left of the carousel was an elevator. As Nemo approached it, he saw there was no call button. Access was controlled by a retinal scan. You looked into a little green light shining down from above the doors. He says he’s a clever fellow, Nemo thought. Let’s see how clever. He walked up to the elevator and stared into the light. “Come on, Grandpa,” he whispered. “Override the damn thing.” The doors slid open, and he stepped inside. There were no buttons or controls of any kind. “Receiving,” he said, and the elevator began to rise. He leaned back against the wall and heaved a sigh of relief. It was almost over.

The doors opened, and he was looking at Rick’s back. He and Ian were waiting at the top of the escalator. The clock above the train platform said 12:16.

“Down,” he said, and Rick turned around. He raised his gun and fired as the doors slid closed. Nemo rolled up into a ball as a bullet ricocheted inside the elevator, then clattered to the floor. The doors came open, and Nemo was back where he started, with the dead. He crawled out of the elevator on his hands and knees. The flap in the wall came open, and a body slid down the chute. An old woman, still holding her handbag. He didn’t suppose she was carrying a gun.

But he didn’t need a gun. He needed another way out of here. He eyed the flap at the top of the chute. It was a low-tech affair, a ramp covered with polished steel, like the slide in the playground when he was a kid.

He gathered his feet under him, ran past the robots, and vaulted onto the carousel. As he passed the bottom of the chute, about waist high, he jumped and grabbed hold of it on either side. His knees slipped on the slick metal, but he pulled himself up until his rubber soles caught and held. Still holding the sides, he started up the chute in a low crouch. It was much longer than it’d looked from the ground, and steeper. But if no one died in the next few minutes, he’d be okay.

As he reached the top, a bald head pushed through the flap. Nemo planted himself and ducked his head, let the body slide over his back and fall to the floor. One of the robots rolled over to pick it up. Nemo pulled open the flap and crawled through, shoving a robot out of the way. It fell over on its back like a turtle.

Nemo looked up to see the blue, glowing face of Victor.

“Are you all right, Nemo?” he asked.

“Just great. You need to upload me immediately.”

“We know. Come with us.”

Nemo had always wondered what it looked like, the last glimpse of the real world people had before they went in. It was like a small chapel with no pews, only a single chair in the middle. As he sat down in the chair, he called to Victor, “Tell Lawrence good-bye for me.”

Victor smiled, his feline fangs hanging over his lower lip.
Farewell
, he signed.
We are honored to have known you
.

Victor reached out and touched a console beside him, and Nemo found himself moving through space, thick with stars, toward a point where they all seemed to come together in a blaze of light of every hue. As he approached, the individual stars disappeared, and the light enveloped him, consumed him, and filled him with joy.

And then, he was lying on his back in bed. He felt something touch his dirt-caked face, and he reached up and found Justine’s hands. He opened his eyes, and her face was before him. “We love you, Nemo,” she whispered. “Welcome home.”

AT 12:21
ALL
CONTACT
WITH
THE
BIN
CEASED
. BY 12:45 the trains into D.C. were jammed. Lawrence and Jonathan rode silently, their eyes on the crowd. Some were wild-eyed with joy: The Rapture would come at any moment. They would see the face of God. Others just looked dazed. Something had changed, and they wanted to go see for themselves what it was, what it meant, if anything, in their lives.

Several of the zealots were carrying axes and sledgehammers in addition to the usual guns and knives, so no one noticed the pick and shovel Lawrence and Jonathan had brought along.

A guy all dressed up in camos, an automatic stuck in his belt, was plushing his way down the aisle when he spotted Lawrence. “Hey, green man,” he shouted. “What’re you doing out today? You a Christian?”

“Wouldn’t be on this train ‘less we were,” Lawrence drawled.

“He’s okay,” Jonathan said. “He’s with me.”

The camo man squinted at Jonathan. “You’re Harold’s boy, ain’t you? Good man, your father.” He continued on down the aisle, looking for infidels.

“Why on earth would he bother to shoot anyone at this stage of the game?” Lawrence wondered aloud.

PENTAGON
STATION
WAS
A
MADHOUSE
.
THERE
WASN’t enough that was fragile to go around. All the glass had been broken within minutes, and the mob found little satisfaction, after the first few strokes, in banging away at concrete walls with sledgehammers. A swarm of them had settled on the escalator up to Receiving and the VIMs, and were beating, prying, even shooting at it.

Lawrence led the way to an elevator at the end of the platform. A pair of men were there, contemplating beating down the polished steel doors with a claw hammer and a hatchet. “How are we going to get past them?” Jonathan asked.

“Follow established procedures, of course,” Lawrence replied. He walked up behind the men. “Excuse me, gentlemen, this lift is reserved for authorized personnel.”

They looked up at Lawrence, as big as a refrigerator, but talking like some damned fairy, and the one with the hatchet said, “We just got authorization, or haven’t you heard? The Bin’s been fried.” He hefted the hatchet in his hand. “We’re in charge now.”

Lawrence laughed, and the man took a swipe with his hatchet, just to scare him a little. Lawrence reached out and plucked it from his hand, examined the blade, and handed it back to him. “Why don’t you run along and bust up some kindling?” he said, talking differently now.

The man with the hatchet took a swing in earnest, aiming for the throat, but Lawrence snatched it out of his hand again. The man back-pedaled into the elevator doors, and his companion took off running. Smiling pleasantly, Lawrence held out the hatchet, handle first. “Apparently, your authority does not extend to this facility,” he said. The man took his hatchet and ran.

As they rode up the elevator, Jonathan asked what Lawrence would’ve done if the men had had guns.

“Taken another elevator,” he said.

VICTOR
MET
THEM
AS
THE
ELEVATOR
DOORS
OPENED
,
AND
led them through darkened rooms, to where Nemo’s body lay, covered with a sheet. Lawrence pulled it off, and they were all silent for a moment.

“Shouldn’t we clean him up?” Jonathan asked. “Where did he get these clothes?”

Lawrence said, “He worked hard for those clothes. We figure he’d be proud to be buried in them.”

“The woman almost didn’t make it,” Victor said. “She came in late. She’s over here.” He pointed out Elaine’s body, in a worn blue velvet dress, probably her finest.

“She’s every bit as beautiful as you described,” Jonathan said to Lawrence.

“Your train’s waiting in the tunnel,” Victor said. “We’ve programmed it to take you straight through to Oregon Hill, no stops.”

“What about you?”

“As soon as you two leave, we’re headed for the hills.”

“See you there, tonight,” Lawrence said. He bent down and carefully took Nemo’s body in his arms. Victor carried Elaine’s. Jonathan followed with the pick and shovel.

As the train got underway, Jonathan said, “I still think we ought to bury him at home. Hollywood’ll be crawling with Gabriel’s people.”

“We won’t have any trouble,” Lawrence said.

AT
THE
GATES
TO
HOLLYWOOD
CEMETERY
, A
GUARD
stepped in front of them. “I don’t know you,” he said to Lawrence. His tone made it clear he didn’t want to know any Constructs.

“We’ve come to bury our dead,” Lawrence said quietly.

Beyond the gates, there were hundreds of people, scattered among the graves, sitting on blankets or standing in small groups. Children ran up and down the walks. Jonathan and Lawrence had attracted the attention of the men hanging around the gate, talking to the guards. One of the other guards, a tall black man, approached them.

“We’ve come to bury our dead,” Lawrence repeated.

The black man bent over and looked into Nemo’s face. “Let them through,” he said to the first guard.

“Gabriel’s not going to like this.”

“I said, let them in.”

The first guard stiffened. “Do you speak for them?” he asked.

The black man straightened up and looked into Lawrence’s eyes. “Yes, I do,” he said.

As they moved through the cemetery, people pointed, and they picked up a trail of kids, but no one tried to stop them. Perhaps because the guard walked along with them. They went past the Monroe Monument, topped a rise overlooking the river, and came to a pair of headstones for Wade Donley and Angelina Donley.

“We figure there’s room on either side of them,” Lawrence said as they laid the bodies on the ground.

IT
TOOK
ALL
AFTERNOON
TO
DIG
TWO
GRAVES
WITH
A
PICK
and a shovel. The black guard stayed on, helped dig when Jonathan was worn out. Lawrence never stopped. Harold, Constance, and Matthew showed up, bringing food and water. Others came to watch, most leaving after a few minutes, a handful staying behind, sitting in a circle around the graves. As the sun was setting there were maybe a dozen who bowed their heads and prayed as Jonathan conducted the funeral service.

Lawrence didn’t listen too closely to the exact words. They didn’t matter that much. He’d never been very religious—an Easter Baptist, a punctual Anglican, a lazy Buddhist. But sometimes things happened to change your mind. He looked out over the river. What looked like the first star of the evening was hanging low over the silver ribbon of water. It wasn’t really a star, its light merely a reflection from the sun, but it was just as bright as one, shining by the grace of God.