Skyline (19 page)

Charlotte
squashed herself against the pier’s wall, behind a foot-wide pylon that might
hide them from Ana’s view. If she saw them before placing the bomb, then this
date would be useless.

It
was all Charlotte had gotten in return for Charlie; she wouldn’t waste it.

As
Charlotte peered from around the pylon, Ana unslung a bag from her shoulder and
took out the bomb. It wasn’t a cube of metal this time, but a sphere of clear
plastic. Once more, Ana checked the guts of the device and activated the timer
with her thin screwdriver. The display lit up, and she sealed the plastic orb
with thick silver tape. Satisfied, Ana picked up the sphere, paused to
double-check the time left on the counter, and dropped it into the Hudson.

It
sank, the blinking red lights fading in the muddy water. When the lights were
no longer visible, Ana activated her mesh astrolabe and vanished.

The
trio stepped out from behind the pylon, staring at the brownish Hudson River.
The bomb was gone, submerged, swept in the current of the Hudson. Behind
Charlotte, Monroe muttered, “Anyone want to go for a swim?”

Without
a word, Charlotte handed the astrolabe to Monroe—he was the closest—and peeled
off her white blouse. Her black slacks tugged at her ankles as she tried to
take them off.

But
Monroe was shouting, “Char! Char!”

She
turned, confused.

“I
was kidding. We have to be smarter.
Calmer
. Right?” He stared at her,
tapping his foot until she agreed.

“Okay?”
she said. “Then what do we do?” What was he suggesting? The bomb was below,
ticking away.

He
winked. “Just wait.” He vanished, then reappeared a few feet away, grinning.
“There.” He pointed to where Ana had sunk the orb. Improbably, the plastic orb
rose up like a pocket of air. On either side were tan hands, the cropped nails
gleaming in the dirty water.

“Monroe?”
They were his hands. In front of her, even as he stood behind. He’d gone back
in time, not to change his past, but to change their future. The orb drifted
closer and Bill plucked it out, tearing off the tape. “You—”

“Bought
some scuba gear. And since I never saw this part, no memory problems to worry
about.” His hands disappeared in the water as he shrugged beside her. “What?”

She
wanted to hug him, to jump for joy. But there was still a bomb to deal with.
He’d saved precious seconds by not allowing her to dive and crawl the bottom of
the Hudson River for the spherical bomb.

Charlotte
tugged up her pants, rebuttoned her shirt, and crouched beside Bill as he took
off the top of the orb and threw it into the river. “Over two-point-six billion
seconds,” he said to the blinking timer. “Though I’m guessing more like thirty.
Ready?”

Sitting
opposite Bill, she said, “Ready,” and pulled some wire clippers from her
pocket. As before, a tangled mass of wires rested inside. One small metal
sphere was visible, connected to dozens of colored cables instead of only two.
Ana hadn’t raised the difficulty much; she’d relied on the river to prevent the
bomb being found.

Thank
God for Monroe’s quick thinking.

Charlotte
fit the cutters under a pink ribbon of wires—Bill saying, “You’re sure that’s
…”—and snipped it before he could finish. She cut a few other cables leading
into one of the spheres, and pulled it out. She threw the orb Bill’s way,
confident he’d be able to tear out the wires inside. Now she had to find the
second one.

As
she pushed through the bomb’s guts, all she felt were wires. No other metal
orb. Not even a computer board. “God, she changed the design.” More than
Charlotte anticipated.

“Let
me help,” Bill said, holding out his hand. Had he learned enough? He’d learned
to be calm, to sit at a bomb without worrying that it would blow up in his
face, but what had he learned in the past about technology?

She’d
have to trust him. “Okay.” Charlotte handed over the wire cutters. “With the
first orb gone, we have a little more time.” She hoped.

Cutters
in hand, Bill lifted out one wire and traced it back to its source. Then again,
isolating each colored wire. He was slow, methodical, clipping spare cables to
get them a better picture of what was inside. When he had a question, he’d ask
without pride, and Charlotte would hazard a guess. Since Ana was Leanor,
Charlotte was more familiar with the bomb’s technology than she’d known.

At
last Bill found the second orb, hidden under a bundle of purple wires, and cut
it out. Now this bomb—and them along with it—wouldn’t be transported to
whenever Ana had sent the Council and all of New York City.

While
Bill cleaned up the wiring, Charlotte unscrewed a metal plate that covered the
lower half of the orb. She dropped it with a clatter at seeing what was
underneath. “God.” Every inch was covered in the same purple goop that
Charlotte hadn’t tried to defuse before. And inside the goop, at the center,
was a computer board, blinking with light, faster and faster.

“The
astrolabe!” Bill said, a hand out to Monroe. To take the bomb through time,
Charlotte saw. To safely detonate the thing.

Charlotte’s
twin took a step backward. “Bill, that’s—”

“’Roe!
Now!” Charlotte held her hand out, too. If Monroe kept waiting, the bomb would
blow up in Bill’s hands—exactly what he must’ve thought he was avoiding. But
her brother kept backing away.

“That’s
suicide
! What is wrong with you two?” He looked behind him to Felix, who
had tugged open the door leading back into the pier.

“Paris
has Charlie, ’Roe!”

“Charlie
needs his mother, Char!”

“Monroe,”
Bill demanded, stepping in front of Charlotte. “Let me.”

“Not
happening.”

“All
those people,” Bill said.

“Already
saved!” Monroe replied. “Who knows how the bomb would react to being taken
through time! Ana—Leanor—could’ve rigged it. Right, Char?”

There
wasn’t time to argue. If Paris wanted the entire bomb dismantled, she’d do it.
But before she could convince Monroe, he slammed through the doorway into Pier
Fifty-four. “Fire!” he yelled from within. “There’s a fire!”

“Goddammit,
’Roe,” Charlotte said. She couldn’t leave this bomb here, and they definitely
couldn’t take it with them. Charlotte made a decision and kicked the bomb
underwater; it sank faster than before. Maybe the water would short-circuit it,
but the purple goop was likely too viscous to let water through. “Let’s go.”
She grabbed Felix’s hand and tugged him after Monroe.

Bill
followed, Charlotte’s bag around his shoulder, filled with the detritus of
Ana’s bomb.

Inside,
dozens of sailors stared at Monroe. The bearded captain joined some
well-dressed people at the railing of the boat.

“There’s
a fire!” Monroe yelled again. “Get the boat
moving
!”

“Yeah?”
a sailor asked with a slow drawl. “Where?”

Monroe
pointed through the wall to where the bomb had been. Then, as if Monroe were a
magician, the pier shook and the wall blasted open, shrapnel ripping across the
wood. Men and women alike screamed, some knocked down by flying chunks of wood.
“Go!” Monroe shouted as he brought his hand down from his face. “Out!” He
turned on his heel to shout to all the family members waiting to wave off the
boat. “Fire!”

Now
they ran. The captain rushed inside. Sailors threw ropes on board. Family
members squeezed around the fire as it licked the wooden floor. Bill paused to
grab a small child and leaped through the flames to the street outside.
Charlotte kept her hand firmly in Felix’s, not letting go. She’d brought him
here; he wasn’t prepared for anything like this. He was her responsibility.

Behind
her, the ship gave two quick blasts of air. It was moving, even as the flames
ate away the pier.

Outside,
the family members collected, watching smoke pour from the pier. If the flames
got to the boat, Charlotte and everyone else would hear. There’d be explosions
or squealing or some other unimaginable noise. She didn’t know exactly what
would happen if the fire found the boat.

She
sure as hell didn’t want to find out.

•
• • • • • • • • • • •

In
the first
few seconds of traveling home, the pier was consumed in the fire. A massive
hole left behind with only a few wooden poles sticking up from the water. A new
version was constructed—there was no way of knowing when—of a dull bronze
instead of pink granite. The other piers were renovated to match the metallic
Pier Fifty-four until all were disassembled.

When
time slowed, only a singular long slab of concrete remained. As it had been in
the early 2000s, the surrounding piers were nothing more than poles in the
water.

A cab
laid on its horn, screeching to a halt behind them. It honked and honked and
honked, all four of them stumbling away from the car. A jammed highway had
sprung up in the past eighty years.

Heart
pounding, Charlotte tugged her family safely back to the sidewalk beside the
concrete pier. Together they headed to the crosswalk to cross the highway
safely. Monroe pressed the button, but his gaze remained on the concrete pier.

The
light turned, but he didn’t move. Charlotte had to pull him along, across the
road. This was him, mourning for buildings when they’d just saved hundreds of
thousands of lives. But then, that was what he was supposed to remember.

She
wished there were more for him to sink his teeth into. He was distracted, and
they didn’t need that. No longer did they have a specific date from Paris, only
a suggestion of how to find Ana. She needed Monroe focused.

Where
one arm of the Mid River had been, there was now the West Side Highway, several
parking lots, and a few glass apartment buildings rising in the distance. The
two popular cafés were gone. The sidewalk was empty, devoid of tourists. The
city had been reclaimed, but the recovered buildings didn’t sparkle with
grandeur. Aside from the few apartment complexes, the buildings were low and
grimy: warehouses, marketplaces, and the NYC Department of Sanitation.

“It’s
the city as it should be,” Charlotte said as they reached the opposite
sidewalk.

Monroe
didn’t reply, but he stayed alongside her, walking east toward the middle of
the city. With the Mid River gone, they couldn’t take a boat to the Plaza.
They’d have to hail a cab, take the subway with a few transfers, or walk. As
evening approached, each option sounded worse than the next. They’d be stuck in
traffic regardless, crammed in with thousands of bodies or cars.

“This
sucks,” Monroe said, his voice exhausted. The destruction of the pier must’ve
hurt him more than Charlotte realized. They hadn’t just wiped out New Yorkers’
memory of history, they’d actively made history worse. It was one thing to know
that the pier had been ruined once, another to become its destroyers.

Charlotte
stopped. “Is there anything close by? Anything we saved that …” She didn’t
know. Anything that he’d appreciate? That would prove that all of this was
worth it? She wanted to race headlong to the Plaza, the closer of the two
monuments left. But not with Monroe like this.

Monroe
bit his lip, eyes traveling up the street. The few closed stores sold fabric,
and no storefront caught his interest. But in the distance, above the street,
light filtered down from a metal bridge.

“The
High Line,” Monroe whispered.

“It
was here before the Blast?” Bill asked.

“A
few years before,” Monroe said, “yeah. I didn’t even think it’d remain. This is
the original, before they rebuilt it.” His eyes widened, following the metal
walkway north, into a building. Through it, he saw something. “Char, can we …
?” He bounced on his toes, biting his lip, staring at Charlotte until he had to
look back up the street.

“Of
course,” Charlotte said. He raced away, and Charlotte clutched Felix’s hand.
“He needs this,” she told him.

Felix
rubbed his short, tight curls, his forehead a field of worry lines. “I do, too,
I think. A quick reset.”

“Something
nice, for once,” Bill added. Instead of kidnappings, sudden divorces, and
death.

They
followed Monroe up Tenth Avenue. He leaped all the way, looking back, looking
forward, a hesitant smile on his lips. Wherever they were headed, it was
somewhere big. He came to a stop, breathing hard, outside unassuming glass doors.
Above, the building was marked with three stone letters: NBC.

“Oh,”
Monroe said, wrinkling his nose when they arrived. “We look like shit.”

Monroe’s
hair was bedraggled and unkempt. Bill’s mustache looked dusty and old instead
of its usual black. Even Charlotte’s white shirt had turned gray from ashes.
With his thick eyebrows pinched upward, Felix just looked frazzled.

After
a moment, Monroe shrugged. “Eh, welcome to Chelsea Market.” He opened one of
the glass doors, and cool air rushed to greet them.

Inside,
the market smelled of warm bread, hot coffee, and humanity. Every possible seat
was taken, most people holding plates, since they couldn’t find a table. Stores
lined the way, glass windows showing their wares. A nearby bookstore spilled
out into the wide hallway, rolling shelves cluttering the entry.

“It
said NBC outside,” Bill said, reaching a hand out toward Monroe. “Was this an
old broadcasting station?”

“Actually,
no,” Monroe said. He rubbed his hands together. “It stands for the National
Biscuit Company. Or, as we know it, NaBisCo.”

“Nabisco,”
Bill repeated, working through the syllables. “I never knew that.”

“Right?
God, I’d forgotten how cool this was before the Blast. After it, some of the
farther stores”—Monroe pointed down the way—“remained, but a lot of them closed
down. The owner couldn’t turn half the building into a waterfront without
tearing the whole thing apart. But they had plans.”

“Plans
that don’t matter anymore,” Charlotte filled in. Before the Blast, she and
Monroe had come here a few times, but she didn’t realize how much he loved it.
They’d simply come for crepes and left.