King's County (19 page)

The food was ready in a minute but my
appetite had disappeared. I just pulled the lid off of the coffee
and sat back down. I couldn't drink the coffee either.

The GAF’s came back, all four, small on
the horizon for a mere second, tearing the air at top speed toward
me, soon over the roof. A solid wall of sound knocked me off the
chair. The picture window shattered with a single intense crack
that I felt in my bones.

Quickly on my feet, I went to the door.
The Space Needle had been hit. Black and brown smoke obscured the
area around it. The fighters swung around to make another pass.
They came in, not too low, two on each side. They dumped
everything, dozens of bombs in rapid succession in a narrow target
zone. I knew the technique: one big hit to shock the target, then
the smaller munitions to pulverize what remained.

The top of the Needle reeled in the sky
as the legs burned then buckled. The crown fell onto the land it
stood over in a roaring heap of hot dust. I felt the heat, then the
burning smell, the dust blew over me and turned to sludge in the
steady rain and I saw the fighters in a diamond formation gliding
off to the north.

Back inside, a strong gust blew rain
into the open space where the window had been. I went to my room
and stared at the shirts folded in the drawer. Pick one... and what
else would I need? What else did I have? I grabbed the first one on
top: sturdy, long-sleeved and casual, fairly dull and
inconspicuous.

In the kitchen I took a long drink of
water and forced down the now cold meal. At the door I looked back.
Nothing could be gained by staying here.

The area around the Needle was in ruins
and burning. The only passable route left was through
downtown.

At the entrance to the little
neighborhood I stopped to look again. Our quasi-Japanese bungalows
were only lightly damaged though well sprinkled with wet ash. No
one was outside. Surely some remained inside. Had they all fled? I
didn't care to find out.

Down the hill, down the empty main road
to downtown, the burning smell was just as strong. Still no one was
around. I saw no one, dead or alive, and heard no distant cries.
Around the corner was a broken pipe loudly spilling water out onto
the street.

At the end of that side street, one of
the smaller converted tower’s apple orchards burned, 20m above the
broken main. A man in a flannel suit came through the alley
alongside and stopped at the pooled water to drink.

Some movement caught my eye, a flicker
of gray against the darker gray granite background. Against the
sidewalk I could see it clearer, creeping in the light rain of ash
from the orchard. The man at the water still drank with both hands
scooping it into his mouth.

The wolf moved in, smoothly in control,
confident of the outcome. The man noticed him only at the last
instant. The jaws took his ankle and the strong legs dragged
backwards jerking the man off his feet, pulling him face down into
the gutter.

He resisted for only seconds. The
wolf’s teeth might have injected a poison or maybe a sedative.
Maybe the man just fainted.

The wolf pulled the man out of sight
and I took the chance to slip away down the main street.

Downhill, closer to the water, I could
see a stretch of the highway that looked undamaged. I stopped and
leaned into a door frame, taking cover while I evaluated what lay
below.

No wolves in sight - or people. I
realized that the patch of water showing past the highway was where
the boardwalk had been.

I jogged further to the next side
street and got on my stomach to cautiously peer around the corner.
This place seemed less dangerous than the main road. Buildings were
intact. The sun gently lit the wet street through a decorative
array of glass pieces, some old restored corporate art in a tall
open atrium. Well fruited, unharvested apple trees lined the
block.

I crawled until I felt safe enough to
stand. I kicked a fallen apple while walking and saw a woman’s head
crane up over a railing. There were two women, sitting together on
a stoop, and they waved me over.

"You don't remember us," she said. "We
know you though." She and her friend laughed.

"Why don't you sit down with us?" the
other said, so I did. They expected me to say something.

"You’re very quiet aren't you? Wait -
Susan, let’s drink the wine now."

They were decent looking girls, 25 or
so, and I’d guess actually thirty-five, forty-ish. I checked out
the one who wasn’t Susan while waiting for the wine.

"Where do you know me from?"

She laughed, "Oh, uh, from the Space
Needle? Where else?"

"Why is that funny? Never mind. I'm
sorry, no, you know it’s gone, right? Destroyed."

"Yeah, of course. We watched from the
roof. Fucking sad, I guess."

"Time for wine!" Susan returned with a
gallon jug of red and three cups. She sat down in a careful,
measured sort of way that for a second belied her true
age.

"Do either of you know what’s going
on?" I asked. "Why are they killing us?"

"Here’s yours." Susan handed me a full
porcelain mug.

I set the mug down. "What are we
supposed to do?"

They looked disappointed. Susan put her
mug down and looked off into the distance. Her friend drank and
poured another.

We all saw it at the same time, a round
thing, a dull mushroom cap a meter across, tooling down the
road.

"C’mon!" I leapt up and pulled the
girl’s wrist.

"Oww! What? Don't get
weird
on me!"

"That thing!" I was off the steps
already and ducking behind them still holding her wrist.

"What - that thing? Forget
it!"

It stopped on its soft wheels. From out
of the bottom emerged three meter-long snakes with dark green and
navy blue hounds-tooth scales. They were for us.

Down the block, I outran mine easily
enough. The girls stayed. I risked a look back and saw their two
snakes coolly running up the rail. The girls calmly watched them go
to their necks, dart in and wrap around. On the quiet street I
could hear their necks break, one then the other.

My knees went weak, turned to mush then
failed - It was coming - Scraping my palms, I struggled, panicking
to get back up from the cement, clambering to escape.

*

Running was easy; with the chip I
wasn't getting tired. Every metabolic function in my body was
optimized, perfect or near to it. When I'd exercised before in my
little house, I'd always stopped after a set time, before really
feeling anything – this time I pushed.

The next few block's buildings were
destroyed from bombs. The street itself was untouched. Further on
looked worse. Fires still burned. The wind came through bringing
the heat to me. I turned to head toward the water.

The artist colony was near. After a few
minutes of steady running, I found it: demolished, reduced to one
ruined story.

I sat on the low wall going around the
complex. The wall was fouled and warm from the fire but undamaged.
Inside a flat field of sticky, greasy ash reached to the remaining
structure.

I’d lost the pursuing snake but wasn't
comfortable staying long in this spot. I had to go
somewhere.

Leaving the city seemed the only
option. Waiting it out or waiting for help here would likely mean
getting killed by these machines. I cut across the scorched plaza
to try the highway. I knew the highway was one of the only ways a
person could conceivably try walking out of the city.

Something crunched underfoot. It was
Elena's purse. The strap was broken and most of the trinkets had
snapped off. The outside stunk of burnt plastic. Inside I found
only a pair of lighters, one working, one not, and kept them
both.

Down the familiar path, the lush
gardens of the park were now black and flattened where the bombs
had hit. What trees were left standing smoldered at their branch's
bare tips. The rain had stopped. Little bits and wisps of ash
floated up and fell as they cooled.

I found the way to the theater then
picked up the long straight sidewalk to the art exhibits. They were
burnt beyond recognition. The tiles were still hot as I felt around
in the heap of ashes and wire at what I guessed might be the right
spot.

He was perfectly intact though
inanimate. The filth wiped right off his metal-ceramic exterior: My
mole. I put him in my pocket with the lighters.

*

From the boxy wheat planters I jumped;
my boots thumped onto the highway.

I could run, the way ahead was clear to
escape the city and the murderous creatures. My legs really got
going - I loped along at a good pace, 25kph probably. The mole's
tail fins jabbed me through my pants pocket with every stride. I
stopped and took him out.

He was a strange looking thing, neither
animal nor machine. Something made by machines that were made by
other machines, more than an animal or a machine. Gently twisting
the fins clockwise retracted them back inside his body. They didn't
bother me further.

Where was I going? I had been heading
north but there was nothing there for me. Going south or east would
take me back through the city. There was only one way to go. On the
third try, I succeeded in levering my body up over the side and out
of the roadway, this time onto a planter of strawberries. I picked
a few handfuls and swallowed, barely tasting them. I needed to go
westward and I would need fuel.

*

Once I found the rhythm, I was able to
settle down and think things over. I swam across the Central Basin.
My boots tied safely around my waist, I kicked out one leg as the
opposite arm reached forward, drew all four limbs inward and
repeated the stroke on the other side. I swam with tireless
precision, briefly resting every 100m to breathe deeply and check
my bearing in the choppy water.

At Bainbridge, I hit a sliver of beach
and sat down to pull on my boots. The forest started at the water.
All of the settlements from times past had been removed years ago.
There was only a power relay remaining, seemingly still in use by
its blinking green light.

I looked back to Seattle. It was dusk
already with clouds moving in. The haze of smoke obscured whatever
was left of it.

An hour of running got me to the
opposite shore of the island. I needed food again. The chip
regulated everything internal, including feelings of hunger. I felt
a pulsing at the back of my throat and at my cardiac sphincter. It
lasted only a few seconds and stopped. As my need to eat increased,
the pulsing would become more frequent.

The boots went back around my waist. I
dove in and pushed, swimming hard to get out into deep water then
whipped my head down and up and breached out like a whale. I hit
the surface head first and kicked until touching bottom.

My eyes adjusted to the water but
little light reached down here. I sat on the sandy bottom for a
minute. Some discomfort in my chest came and went much like the
hunger pangs. I knew I wouldn't need to breathe again for
awhile.

Half crawling, half swimming along the
bottom, objects gradually became visible. The sand was much lighter
in contrast to the rocks and boulders. In a hole in a pile of
rocks, a fat salmon floated asleep. I grabbed him by the
midsection. My fingers dug in around his big body, breaking the
skin to get a solid grip.

*

The inlet to Silverdale was a short
swim for me, less than an hour, and I was running again on the old
road going west and northwest.

I'd eaten the salmon soon after
catching it. I stripped the bones of raw meat with my teeth.
Without thinking the better of it, I chewed on a fin and some skin.
The vertebrae were an easy shape to crunch and swallow. I ate them
and then all the skin and then everything else.

All I saw was the road with the forest
on each side. All the little spots and houses, restaurants and
things were removed and the land reclaimed by nature. Four hours of
dogged running in the light of a half moon got me to a flat stretch
of beach and sharp rocks. At one time it had been a resort. I knew
this from a sign made from stacked river stones and redwood logs
that the KC+9 landscapers must have passed over. Across the canal
was Olympia, still too dark to see. I'd rest and wait. I dug up
some little crabs to eat along with handfuls of wet green
algae.

Lying on my back, napping in the sand,
a storm came in ruining the morning light. To hell with waiting - I
took a roughly westward heading. I swam in my boots, having
mastered the technique by now. Diving down, I got a couple of
steelhead and ate them both while standing up on the bottom of the
canal.

My body was getting stronger. Arriving
at Olympia, my arms and back were swelled with larger muscles. The
previous 24 hours exertion had not tired me at all. The chip had
responded to the stress and made adjustments, adapting me, building
my muscles and bones in hours instead of weeks or
months.