The Crash of Hennington (43 page)

A crackle. Her ears spun to the sound on the slight hill above them. A rustle bigger than a usual forest animal in the bushes to the left. The evasive smell became stronger, a smell of the forest but too strong to be natural, too powerful to be the actual forest, and there, just underneath, another smell. But what? She slowly raised herself on her front legs, confused that the smell revealed only nonsense information. Something was there but was not offering itself up. And it followed that what didn’t offer itself up in the otherwise democratic palate of forest smells usually had a reason for wanting to remain unknown. A bad reason. Her anxiety tightened, quickly as a flexed muscle.

Thin creatures.

She hadn’t even breathed out a few seconds of her warning call before the first crack unfurled. It was so loud and sharp that there was no telling where it had even come from. A hundred drowsy heads snapped up at the sound and then turned to a sudden, strangled, terrified yelping coming from a young male near the top of the small hill. The herd watched as he struggled to his feet, stepped forward on wobbly legs, then pitched over on his side with a moan. The smell of his blood reached them even before they saw it spilling in an alarming flood from a wound in his side. And another smell, too. A burning odor that drifted down the hill with lazy malice.

A long second of impossible silence, and then the air erupted.

They were on their feet and running before any of them knew what was happening, chaotically fleeing in all directions from the sounds that seemed to be coming from everywhere, as if every tree in the entire forest was falling at once. Explosions flowered from all sides, sometimes accompanied by the wail of a member of the herd, sometimes by a horrible thud as a running animal fell to the ground.

She ran with them, squashing her own panic and trying to bellow above the incomprehensible din. Herdmembers were running everywhere, and she was among them. The herd must not divide. The herd must not divide. She stumbled as a large male in front of her fell to the ground, blood pouring from a horrible gash between his eyes. The herd was dividing, and she was powerless. She bellowed as loud as her lungs would carry but the sound seemed ineffective and small, buried beneath the roar of the forest tearing itself to pieces. She had no choice. The herd must not divide. She stopped in her tracks, fighting every instinct to flee, and raised her head in an extended yell.

An explosion rocketed near her ears, and almost simultaneously her head twisted hard to one side, nearly throwing her to the ground with a grinding twist of her neck. A terrible soreness filled the end of her nose, as if something had tried to rip her horn off her body. Foggy eyes watering, she tried to squint through to the source of the pain. An alarming section near the front end of her horn seemed to have blown outward. The tip was still there, but the hard keratin around the outer curve was a mess of splinters and fragments. She coughed at the smoke that seemed to be coming from everywhere, and her nose throbbed at the motion.

Enough. Enough. The herd must not divide. Enough.

She opened her jaw as wide as she could, and a new sound issued forth, this time fear accompanied with pain and a
newfound rage. And again. And again. A pause opened in the explosions, and she could hear the sounds of thundering feet, now getting louder as the members of the herd began to respond to her call. She bellowed again, and for the first time, she heard answering calls from all around her in the forest, increasing in volume as the first animals broke through shrubs and undergrowth into her presence. Then came confirmation. An enormous female burst through the branches with a thin creature caught on her horn. The female shook it off and continued her panicked run towards the leader. The thin creature was trampled quickly under her stride and by three and more members of the herd coming through the thicket behind her.

It
was
the thin creatures, then. Was this the answer to the smell of blood she’d been unable to shake? Was this the price?

No time. She bellowed once more. The racing animals answered. She turned, forced her way through a fallen, dead log, only briefly noticing another thin creature running to get out of her way. At full gallop, forcing as loud a call through her throat as she could manage, she stampeded forward, onward, away from the explosions that were only now resuming behind them. More animals answered her call as she plunged through the brush. She heard cries of pain as animals fell near the back of the herd, but they were getting away, they were gaining distance from the chaos.

She headed for the edge of the forest. Another explosion just above her head caused her to swerve, but three more steps and she was through to the lea in the hill of fields. She turned her head slightly as she ran and bellowed, watching as the rest of the herd smashed through the wooded border, leveling small trees, and driving smaller forest animals in front of them. As she led them further from the woods, further across the lea, heading towards the open hills just across the northern
edge of the city, she noticed that less than two thirds of the herd was following her.

How many animals killed? How many more wandering alone, lost and terrified in the forest? Sorrow mixed with her fear now, and a deep, ferocious fury. They were beyond all borders now, past all sense and history, past all precedents, all rules forgotten.

She bellowed again, and they followed her, running, running, running.

92. Not the Highest Bid, but the Earliest.

Archie’s grand office had degenerated into squalor. Papers were piled everywhere. Half-eaten food decomposed on dirty plates. The garbage can overflowed. The breakdown didn’t stop with the main office, either. Archie had turned off the ice rink and drained the water. The tennis court was dusty with lack of use. And the grass on the driving range had actually begun to sprout weeds, although how weed spores could have found their way into the for-all-intents hermetically sealed penthouse was beyond both Archie’s knowledge and interest. The small living space, intended only for single overnight stays, was in even worse shape. Archie had only left the penthouse on three occasions in the past two months, all of which were brief visits to Thomas. Jules had finally insisted on bringing a maid service into at least the bathroom and bedroom, once even locking Archie in his office so the fleet-footed team could dispose of age-old clothes, change ripe sheets, and vacuum up alarming piles of detritus. Jules had worried about pulling such shenanigans on Archie, then had worried more when Archie had shown no response at all.

—I think you’re in danger of falling into such a deep hole that you won’t be able to get back out again.

—That’ll be all, Jules.

—The Board are at their wits’ end, sir. The individual companies can more or less run themselves for maybe a little while longer, but without a captain at the wheel—

—I said, that’ll be all.

—Disaster is just waiting to happen.

—Leave now if you don’t want to be fired.

—If you haven’t made good on that threat by now, you’re never going to. I’m merely telling you the facts.

—I’m aware of the facts! And despite your flitting and fretting, I’m handling the problem.

—You are?

—Yes.

—How?

—Who are you to ask me how?

—The one who’s been running Banyon Enterprises singlehanded for months now, that’s who.

—Don’t worry, Jules. You’ll be taken care of.

—Oh, shit, meaning what, exactly?

—Leave. I’m taking care of things. I told you. Leave. Oh, wait, yes, get that maid service in here again. I need the office cleaned up.

—You what?

—I have a meeting at 2.30.

—It’s 2.10 now, Archie. I can’t possibly get a crew in here between now and then.

—Oh, well, forget it then. Just call me when he’s here.

—Who?

—The only one who’ll show up by 2.30. Now, please go and wait for him.

Archie was indeed expecting a guest. A call from nowhere.
References and financial securities offered with a reassuring quickness. And now to actually meet the man and seal the deal. That his last deal should also be his easiest was a comfort. The office should have been cleaner, though. Simple good practice, that was. Archie was still a businessman, goddamnit. There was a way you did things. At least, there used to be. At least, that was what he tried to tell himself. At the very least, he supposed a cleaner office would have maybe made him feel a little better. Maybe. Maybe not. Who cared anymore?

He had stopped wondering how he had gotten to this point. He would find himself making a movement in his chair and discover he had been sitting there for hours. No matter. Somewhere a line had been crossed, some irretrievable boundary, but if so, fine. He had learned to not look back. Always move forward forward forward. Keep your goal in sight and don’t bother with what’s gone on before or what will come after. Eyes on the prize, as they say. And when you got the prize, because you always did sooner or later, you just went looking for another prize. That’s all this was, he told himself. This whole meeting was a way to make it easier to get his hands on the prize, that of finding his dear son. Looked at that way it even seemed part of the process. Yes, he could live with that.

His announce light came on. Jules’ voice came through the speaker.

—Your 2.30 is here.

—Send him in.

—Do you really think—

—Just send him in.

Archie clicked off. He closed his eyes and waited for the sound of his door opening. He kept them closed as the man stepped firmly into the room and made the long walk to
Archie’s desk. There was a silence as the man waited for Archie’s attention. Archie opened his eyes.

—It’s a pleasure to finally meet the legendary Archie Banyon in person.

Archie reached forward, extending his hand. Jon Noth, new owner of Banyon Enterprises, shook it firmly.

93. What We Wish For.

—You don’t understand, I
have
to.

—I’m sorry, Jacki, but the risk is just too high. You go see them, you get snatched up by Thomas Banyon, and then what?

—All right, answer me this. Do you think my chances of getting out of this mess are all that high?

—I think you stand a fair chance—

—A fair chance isn’t good enough. It’s also a lie, isn’t it? My chances are pretty damn low.

—We’ve gotten plenty of other people away from—

—But not anyone that he was looking for quite so strenuously, right? Not anyone that he’d punch a poor little woman for, right? Not anyone who he would dig so deeply in the Underground for, right? If he finds me, he’ll kill me. I know that. Either he’ll kill me straight out or force me back onto Forum and then I’m dead anyway,

—Jacki, look—

—So he grabs me when I see my kids. That would be horrible, but if he’s going to grab me anyway, at least I will have seen my kids that once. At least someone will know that I’ve been grabbed. At least—

—He could grab your kids.

—Not if we do it in a public enough place. Besides, they won’t even know I’m there. I’ve got a plan—

—Listen to yourself. You’re purposely putting yourself
and
your kids in danger that you don’t seem to be aware of. There are some weird things going on that you don’t even know about.

—Like what?

—Strange rumblings in the air. People who you wouldn’t expect are finding religion all of a sudden.

—Religion? What does that have to do with anything?

—Something’s at work, but nobody quite knows what it is yet. It might even be more of a risk than you think.

—I want to see them before I die.

That stopped things, at least for a moment. Jacki knew every argument the shorter one, whose name she still didn’t know, was throwing at her. She knew the risk, but she knew her chances, too. She also bet that Thomas was far too smart to ever drag her kids into it. Jacki could be painted as a whore, a drug addict, and who knew what else. She could be disappeared; her kids couldn’t. He would only want
her.
She had to see Morton and Tucker, even if it meant Thomas finding her. Because, because he wouldn’t stop until he did.

If the shorter one could only understand what it had been like to talk to them again. Just to hear their voices, just to have them acknowledge who she was, after all this time. It was like throwing yourself out of a plane only to discover that the ground was a few feet away. Gathering the courage to jump was the hard part, the rest fell into place like a dream.

—Mom? Is this a joke?

—No, Morton. It’s Mom.

—Oh.

He said it again.

—Oh.

—I know it’s been a long time, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that.

—Where are you?

—I can’t tell you that, Morty.

—Why not?

—I, uh, I’m in a bit of trouble.

—What kind of trouble?

—I can’t really go into it, but I’m safe for now. I just wanted to call—

—Where’ve you been? It’s been like two years.

Apart from anything that could bring them danger, she had decided on complete honesty right from the start.

—I’ve been fighting a drug problem. That’s only an explanation, not an excuse. But I’m better now. I’ve kicked it as good as I ever have.

—Is that why you’re in trouble?

—Yes. I had to kind of run from a situation, making some people unhappy, but I’m doing it to rescue myself. Listen—

—We were worried about you. We thought you might be dead.

—I’m not.

I was, she thought, but I’m not now.

Amazingly, everything just got easier and easier. Morton and Tucker, savvy teenagers both, turned out to know about drug addiction in more intimate terms than Jacki frankly felt comfortable with, but the result was complete acceptance that in no time whatsoever transformed itself into an almost pushy curiosity. Arguments and resentments might come later, but for now, there was only shared relief. To her horror, being a Forum addict almost made her a heroine.

—How much did you take a day?