Near Enemy (22 page)

Then he turned the jukebox back on and cranked up the music to drown out the wail of the arriving sirens.

Pass that pub on Ninth.

Still open.

I’ll admit. I consider it.

But I keep walking north.

Past darkened windows with a neon shamrock, lit up 24/7.

Door propped wide with a waste can stuffed full of spent butts and ashes.

Just a handful of radioactive regulars inside at the bar.

Head east to Eighth Avenue and Fortieth Street.

Walk alongside the big vacant lot where Port Authority once stood.

Spot two or three clickers, with their homemade hazmat suits and Geiger counters and surplus gas masks, lugging bulging garbage bags, like apocalyptic Santas. Still sifting and picking through the debris of Port Authority. Even at this early hour, even at this late date.

Like there’s anything left in there to be salvaged. Maybe you’ll find a half-melted fridge magnet that says
WELCOME TO NYC
.

You have to give it to clickers, though. Unlike the rest of us, they never give up hope.

Port Authority. Once a bus station. Now it just looks like a burial ground for concrete blocks. Buses were still busy for maybe a year or so after Times Square, but only the ones headed outbound. Not too many people were arriving by bus, and those who were got rerouted to Grand Central. Port Authority stayed open for maybe another year, limping along, though a lot of workers wouldn’t even report to work, being that close to Times Square. Then the authorities claimed they’d caught wind of some alleged bus-bomb plot, some plan to pack a Greyhound with petroleum and dynamite and nails and whatever else and send it hurtling into Port Authority. It was just a bunch of online chatter really, lunatic ramblings overheard, but it gave them the excuse they needed.

Let swing the wrecking ball.

No one mourned. Save maybe bums.

Did seem symbolic, though.

The crumbling of Authority.

Next stop on our tour.

Northeast corner of Fortieth and Eighth.

Across the street from the empty Port Authority lot stands an empty skyscraper.

The old
New York Times
building.

Not the old old
Times
building. It’s the new old building, the third one, the fancy skyscraper that looks like a needle stuck inside a ladder. This was the final home to the
New York Times
, at least back when it was still printed on paper, and back when it was still based in New York.

It’s no longer available on paper, of course. Just an info feed now, piped into the limn, news of the world, rendered in roving pixels. The
Times
ditched paper long ago, no more newsboys and home delivery. Then the
Times
ditched these offices too, of course. Moved to Boston, I think.

Kept the name though.
Boston Times
just doesn’t have the same ring.

The skyscraper’s long since been abandoned. Squatters and clickers are the only reason the white Entry Forbidden tape got peeled away from the lobby doors.

Left to flutter. Like a surrender flag.

I’m headed to the
Times
building, by the way.

That’s where they’re keeping Lesser.

But not this
Times
building. And not the old
Times
building either.

I’m headed to the first one. The original one.

On Forty-Second Street.

The one Times Square was named for in the first place.

Simon and Mark arrive on a runaway subway, train swaying and racing, bullet-speed, through tunnels that flicker like an old silent movie, except the car is anything but silent.

Track noise nearly deafening.

Car jostles. They steady themselves.

Mark Ray’s in his usual off-body getup. Shirtless. White raiment wrapped around his nethers. Gold sandals with straps tied up to the knees. Blond curls wild.

Like an angel.

Mark’s got a persona he adopts when he taps in. Calls himself Uriel. Name borrowed from an actual angel in the Bible. Name means God Is My Light. Uriel was the angel charged with keeping Adam and Eve out of Eden, once they’d fallen.

Mark finds that inspiring, somehow.

Along with his knuckle tattoos, the ones that spell DAMN and ABLE, Mark has a tattoo spread across his shoulder blades. Reads I RULE in the real-time world. Rearranges to spell URIEL in the limn.

And then there’s the wings, of course.

Unfurl as needed.

Right now, they’re tucked out of sight.

Mark cracks his knuckles. Clears his throat. Says aloud.

Man, it feels so good to be able to talk again.

He shouts over the subway noise.

Hello! Hello!

Shout swallowed up by voracious track-rattle.

Simon stands next to him, scouting the train car. Simon’s not in any particular off-body getup. Simon just looks like Simon. White turtleneck, stretched over the kind of physique that they don’t make normal clothes for. Black beard, now neatly trimmed. Facial expression of general disdain.

Only allows himself one sartorial flourish in the limn.

Bandoliers.

Two stained leather gun belts slung across his chest in an X.

He saw them in a movie once. As a kid. On a bandito. Always liked how they looked.

Saves them for special occasions.

And at each hip, holstered, Simon carries a silver handcannon. Repeating revolvers with eight-inch barrels. Two fistfuls of Dirty Harry macho overcompensation.

Also reserved for special occasions.

Normally Simon doesn’t work with munitions. Hands are more than plenty.

But then again, this is a black room.

Just like a wedding.

There’s no such thing as overdressed.

Simon unholsters a handcannon and holds the barrel to pursed lips. Shushes Mark. Steel wheels clatter over broken old track as the train hurtles forward.

Subway car’s empty, save for these two. Simon can’t help but note that Mina dropped them in perfectly. It’s very tricky to tap someone into one of these moving subway-train constructs.

Car’s covered in graffiti too. Like how they all used to look in New York.

Car shakes again. Jostles. Mark nearly stumbles.

Simon steadies him.

Easy now.

Then the lights go out, just like in a murder mystery.

Two passengers on the Disorient Express.

Lights come back up.

Simon’s mid-explanation, shouting over subway noise.

—so don’t worry. This is a common black-room scenario.

A subway?

Yes. Or some kind of train.

Why?

Because the programmers protect the black room from intruders by constantly moving its virtual location, hopping from server to server, all over the world. Train’s just a metaphor for that. A moving target.

Lights go out again. More rattling. More jostling. Now in darkness. Tunnel lights flicker past.

Lights come back up.

Simon says.

It’s just like any construct. Use your environment. Play to your strengths. Your whole angel-boy bit should come in handy in here.

Sure. But that’s the problem.

What’s that?

Mark flexes, bare-chested. He’s not Simon, but he’s muscular.

He grunts.

Bends double.

Sprouts wings.

Stands straight.

Tries to stretch his wings to their full expanse. To take flight.

Can’t do it in the subway car.

Says to Simon.

Little cramped in here.

That your only trick?

No. I know a couple more.

Okay then. Surprise me.

Lights go out again. Brakes whine and outside the windows sparks rise from the track like a flock of fleeing birds.

Car rattles loudly. Settles down.

Lights come back up.

Mark and Simon both notice at the same moment.

Far end of the car.

Company.

Man in a cowboy hat. Tipped over to shade his eyes. Feet in cowboy boots, crossed at the ankle. Spurs on boots. Hands rest on twin holsters. Like he’s been waiting for them all day.

Leaning back against the door at the far end of the train that connects to the next subway car. The door that’s between where Simon and Mark are and where Simon and Mark need to be.

Between Simon and Mark and Lesser.

Hat tips up.

Bone-white toothpick in his mouth.

Toothpick shifts.

Howdy, boys.

Simon frowns.

Do-Good. It’s been a while.

Cowboy sneers.

Toothpick shifts.

Too long, I’d say.

Mark pipes up.

Do-Good? That’s his name? What is he, some kind of do-gooder?

Simon smirks.

Not exactly.

Then says to Do-Good.

I thought I told you last time I saw you that if—

Do-Good grins but otherwise doesn’t bother to answer or even listen to the rest of what Simon’s saying, just draws on
Simon, firing off both of his six-shooters, which turn out to be fully automatic. Fills the car with tracer rounds. You can do that in the limn. Normal laws of munitions do not apply.

Revolver chambers smoke and spin like barrels of a Gatling gun.

Strafes the car.

Four or five tracers perforate Mark Ray’s wings right away, leaving ragged blood blossoms on white feathers. Mark winces, bends double, ducks, and folds his wings over himself, creating a kind of feathered cocoon. Scurries behind a seat-bench, looking to take cover. Partly to shield himself from Do-Good’s gunfire, and partly to shield himself from what he knows is coming next.

The sound of Simon’s handcannons.

Which comes.

Car shudders.

Boom boom.

Then another boom-boom as these first shots echo in the confines of the cramped subway car, and after that Mark can only hear ringing.

Then faraway gunshots. Or at least they sound far away.

Okay, now they’re getting closer. Or just louder.

Tracers sear the air with a zip-zip-zip.

Followed by the zing-tang-zing of bullets ricocheting inside a metal box.

Mark shuffles sideways to crouch behind the subway seat-bench, which splinters plastic with each fresh hit. Realizes there’s nowhere to move in here. And he’s not much use to anyone crouched over with his wings folded on top of him.

Taken under his own wing, as it were.

Simon, meanwhile, stands calm in the aisle and just empties the two handcannons.

Boom boom. Boom boom.

Except they won’t empty. Despite his best efforts.

Why would they?

It’s just a dream.

Boom boom.

Zip-zip-zip-zip-zip.

Zing-tang-zing.

Do-Good opts for a scattershot approach, while Simon focuses on kill shots.

Takes careful aim again.

Boom boom.

Both hit.

Mark can tell because Do-Good’s knocked suddenly backward like a punch-drunk boxer on wobbly pins. Behind him, there’s a fresh Jackson Pollock painted on the subway car wall.

Large sucking wounds devour Do-Good’s midsection.

He doubles over. Looks down. Frowns.

Toothpick shifts.

Well, Simon, now you’ve gone and done it.

Then Do-Good winces. Grimaces. To be honest, it kind of looks like he’s taking a dump.

Large sucking wounds make an entirely different sucking sound.

Close like apertures. Completely.

Do-Good straightens. Adjusts his newly shredded denim cowboy shirt. Looks up at Simon.

Toothpick shifts.

This was my favorite shirt.

Simon stands watching this whole display, handcannon in each hand, leaking gun smoke.

We going to do this all day, Do-Good?

Zip-zip-zip-zip-zip.

Clouds of newly splintered subway seat.

Simon dodges. Sighs.

I guess so.

Takes aim again.

Boom boom.

This time, one hits.

Do-Good staggers again.

Makes his taking-a-dump-face again.

Mark sees an opening.

Makes his move.

Rushes down the center of the subway aisle in a running crouch. Wings still folded over him, like Dracula’s cape.

Do-Good looks up. Snorts.

And what are you planning to do, angel man? Flap me to death?

Mark rises. Spreads his wings. Looks like a bat. But white. Presents a sudden blinding expanse of trembling feathers. Distracts Do-Good just long enough that he doesn’t see what’s held in Mark’s hands.

Sword hilt gripped in both fists.

Flaming blade.

Mark’s other trick.

The cuts won’t kill Do-Good, of course.

After all, you can’t die in the limn.

But given that one arm is here, one leg over there, another leg at the far end of the car in four cleanly separated pieces, and his torso is twitching limbless at Mark’s sandaled feet, it’s going to take a lot of strenuous mental dump-taking for Do-Good to put himself back together again.

Not to mention that Do-Good’s head is about forty yards behind them on the subway track. And counting. Complete with cowboy hat.

Should buy them ten minutes, at least.

Enough time to get to Lesser.

Simon’s impressed. Nods to Mark.

Nifty trick.