The Crash of Hennington (48 page)

Archie relaxed back in his chair to a position almost comfortable. He took a few shallow breaths. His chest hurt. He could feel the sadness reach in for the last of him, reach in and squeeze the final anguish of pain from his heart.

Oh, my son, what have I done?

He couldn’t quite tell when death came upon him, which was a shame because it would have been a relief from the unbearable ache of his body. But his heart finally stopped, his breath left him for the last time, and he did die, deep in the vast silence of the office he would have to have left soon anyway. The fire continued outside. The day’s destinies were beginning to be met all over the city.

A low hum could be heard by anyone walking by Archie’s office, if anyone did, a hum that seemed to be coming from the chair where Archie sat slumped, his arms hanging low to the floor on either side of him. A low hum, yes, but unmistakably there.

104. War It Is, Then.

A distant smell of smoke filled the air, and members of the herd were growing agitated. She had jumped to her feet at the sound of the first distant explosion. Even though it was far off, the tremble in the ground was disturbing, shaking her out of what had become her first real rest in many, many days. However strange this new place was, they at least had plenty to eat and drink through the hot, dusty morning, and
the few thin creatures who hovered around the edge of the herd had done nothing to bother them as they lay down, at last, to rest, a rest that had proven cruelly brief as the first explosion thundered through the ground, waking up not just her but the rest of those members of the herd who had not slipped off into permanent slumber. They stood now again. Facing an unseen threat, again. Looking to her for leadership. Again.

She had recognized at once that the path of the flight from the gully had been chosen for them. After stopping to form their defensive circle, time passed, but nothing happened. Slowly, she realized the thin creatures had left an opening in the circle around them. As nothing continued to happen, she reluctantly led the herd through that opening. The circle of thin creatures followed behind them. As they walked, there was always one clear direction in their path, so that was the way they headed, even though she knew that was what the thin creatures wanted. Trying to force the herd’s way through them would prove immediately effective, but more would die. And the thin creatures would just track them down again. If the creatures wanted a fight at the end of this run, then a fight it would be, but with the full numbers of the remaining herd.

Yet at the end of it, they had been led into a dusty field, walled around all sides except for a gate at one end. The herd prepared itself for an attack, which then never came. Slowly, they realized that bundles of dried grass were positioned around the small field, as were standing ponds full of water. The herd grew restless until she herself went over and sniffed one of the bundles. When she took a bite out of it and chewed down the sweet grass, something approaching a sigh of relief made its way through the herd, and in no time, herdmembers were everywhere, eating and drinking their fill. As the few
hours passed, something resembling calm slowly descended on the group. Her own eyes began to feel heavy. She lay down with the rest of the herd and somehow went to sleep, finally forgetting the pain in her damaged horn. A few days had passed that way, a bucolia that had almost,
almost
, made her let her guard down.

And now this.

The members of the herd stood silently, not one of them moving or lowing. She raised her head high into the air, picking up the scents that lingered there as deeply as she could. Definitely burning, still at a distance but growing. She squinted. Her eyes weren’t sharp enough to see the specific pillars of smoke on the horizon, but she could gauge the more general darkness of a certain section of the sky. Something else, too. Thin creatures, of course, but that smell had never quite left this little field. This was different though, wasn’t it? She took a long slow breath, letting the air roll slowly through her great nose. Yes, thin creatures, but different. She smelled sweaty agitation. She smelled quick, purposeful movement, growing closer with each passing second. There, just there, lying faintly against all the other smells –

She lowered her head and snorted loudly to the herd. She threw herself into a trot around the animals as they gathered themselves quickly into the defensive circle once more. The approaching smells were becoming clearer, and now there was no mistaking it. Thin creatures, lots of them, approaching and accompanied by the same, evil metallic smell that had preceded them in the attack in the woods, the smell that had brought the explosions.

Their heads turned all at once to the sound of the gate crashing open. A thin creature appeared, walking slowly to the center of the opening. The herd pulled its circle tighter. The thin creature knelt in that strange way they had. It was
carrying a long slender rod that it raised towards the herd. She realized then that the circle wouldn’t work. A bang exploded from the mouth of the rod. A great old female on her immediate right crumpled to her knees, pitching forward onto the dust, blood pouring out of a huge hole in her throat. The thin creature did something to the rod and raised it again. Two more thin creatures emerged behind him, each carrying their own rods. Her eyes narrowed.

So the time was now after all.

Without raising her head, she bellowed the loudest call she could muster and plummeted forward. The members of the herd could hear the rage in her cry, a rage that convinced away the fear that each of them felt. She charged, they followed, no hesitation.

The first thin creature looked up from his rod as the herd bore down. It staggered back, raising the rod again. An explosion sounded. A long thin scar of pain tripped burningly up her side. She ignored it and pounded forward. By the time the thin creature raised the rod once more, she was on it, thrusting her broken but still-effective horn up through the thin creature’s crossed forelegs, through the middle of its chest, and out the other side. The smell of its blood greeted her again. She tossed its body to the side in time to see the pair of thin creatures who had emerged be gored and trampled underneath the feet of the cascade of herdmembers that now poured from the opening.

She bellowed again and looked around her. The gate opened onto a small clearing bordered by another low wall. There were thin creatures everywhere, all holding larger and smaller versions of the same rods, aiming them from sites atop the wall, leaning out from behind low trees, some resting in and on top of the metal boxes they sometimes rode around in. But the herd was here, too. The herd would not divide. The
herd would face this now, she knew that. If this was the end, they would not run from it. The air filled with explosions. The animals charged forward. The battle was on.

105. A Kindness.

Eugene lived in a small flat in the southeastern part of the city, and the drive to the office took him even further south. That, combined with a certain cultivated obliviousness and the ongoing distraction of driving the Bisector, had caused him to miss completely any evidence that something odd was going on in the city that morning. In fact, the first thing he noticed that indicated something might be amiss was that Jon wasn’t in the office when he arrived, which was strange because Jon, even on the days when Eugene didn’t drive him, seemed to materialize there anyway, always before Eugene arrived, no matter how early. The second strange thing was that Jon stormed in five minutes later, looking unhappy.

—You have to leave here, Eugene.

—What?

—Do you know where Jill is?

—What? Yes, I—

—Where is she?

—Back at my apartment, still sleeping. Why—

—You have to go get her, and you have to get out of the city.

—What are you talking about?

Jon grabbed his wrist and nearly dragged him into the back office. The curtains were opened onto a clear, northerly view. Clear, that is, except for giant legs of smoke that seemed to be stomping on the city.

—That’s what I’m talking about.

—What the hell—

—Rioters, or maybe that’s not even the right word. They’re too systematic to be rioters.

Eugene looked at Jon.

—Did you do this?

—Of course not. In a way. I didn’t mean for
this
to happen, that’s for sure.

—Was it that weird old guy?

—Yes.

A slender knife of new, white smoke rose from a location decidedly nearer to the office. Another drifted lazily up from a clock tower near City Hall.

—This can’t be one man. It’s too big. There have to be hundreds—

A flash of light, followed a second later by a rumble of the window as the sound wave of the explosion reached them.

—Fucking hell!

—I know. That’s why you have to leave.

—This is crazy. How can you tell me one guy could do all that?

—It only takes one guy to lead. If you can convince two people, they can convince two more. Two turns into four turns into eight and on and on. It snowballs.

—But this much?

—There’s this heat, for one. People get frustrated. They join in riots and mobs. It’s human nature. A lit match on fuel.

—But they
live
here! They must be destroying their own homes and neighborhoods.

—No one ever said it was logical. Listen, Eugene,
you have to leave.
Go pick up Jill and get out of the city. I’m not kidding. This is not a joke.

—But aren’t you kind of a friend of that guy? Aren’t you safe?

—When it gets to this kind of critical mass, none of that means anything. You have to go. I’m telling you for your own safety.

—What about you?

—What
about
me?

—Are you coming with me?

Jon looked surprised.

—I’m not sure I understand the question.

—How can you not understand the question? If I’m not safe and you say you’re not safe, then why aren’t you coming, too?

Jon considered Eugene for a moment. Eugene’s face had genuine worry written on it. He really was concerned that Jon get to safety. What a heartbreakingly pleasant surprise.

—I have to stay, Eugene. The Mayor’s in danger. I have to make sure she’s safe.

—Can’t you just call her?

—I’ve already been to see her this morning. She threw me out.

—Well, then, who gives a damn whether she’s safe or not?

—I do. One day, you’ll realize, Eugene, and I hope it’s not in too painful a manner, that when you love someone rightly, when that love is your destined love, then it’s completely irrelevant whether they love you back or not.

—Bullshit. How can you care when someone doesn’t care back?

—I’m helpless to it, Eugene. Utterly, thoroughly, completely helpless. I love Cora Trygvesdottir, and I’m incapable of stopping.

—She’s Cora
Larsson
now. She’s not the same person.

—Doesn’t matter.

—Yes, it does!
That’s
your problem, not slavery to love. You’re a slave to love that’s
dead.
That’s what you can’t accept.

—You don’t understand—

—Yes, I do! I understand that you’re going to try and save some woman who doesn’t give two shits about you and you’re probably going to get killed in the process. And for what? Nothing!

Another low rumble shook the window. This time they could feel it under their feet as well.

—One of the things I’ve always said I liked about you, Eugene, is your ability to surprise me, and yet knowing that, I still manage to be surprised when you do.

—Oh, here we go, off on another one of Jon Noth’s Thoughtful Tangents—

—You’re concerned about my safety.

—Of course I am.

—Why?

—What do you mean ‘why'?

—I’m just your boss, Eugene. Not your friend.

—Okay, now that hurts. If you’re not my friend, why all these nice things for me, huh? Why all the new clothes and the skin doctor and the ridiculous pay checks? Huh? Why all these dinners out and the liberal lunch hours? Why all the talking and the conversation and ‘Self-deprecation is destructive, Eugene’ and ‘How could someone as handsome as you be so shy, Eugene’ and ‘You deserve more credit than you give yourself, Eugene'? I finally accepted that you weren’t trying to get in my pants, but if that’s true, then it must be friendship, right? I’ve seen how you treat co-workers. I saw how you treated that idiot that you made run for Mayor. I was different. You treated me like—

—Like a friend, yes.

—And if you’re not my friend, then why race all the way down here to warn me when you could be downtown rescuing your wannabe girlfriend?

Jon smiled, incongruously, warmly, gently. He even laughed.

—What a strange morning this has been.

—No kidding.

—You’re right, of course, Eugene. I was a fool not to see it.

—See?

—Speaking as your friend, then, I want you to leave. I want you to go pick up Jill and leave the city. That tank you drive ought to give you plenty of protection.

—What about you?

—I’ll do my best to keep myself safe. I need to do what I need to do, but you have my word as a friend that I won’t be foolish.

—Depends on your definition of foolish.

—Now, please, Eugene, you must go. I’m not kidding.

—Okay, fine, enough warming of the iceberg for today, I guess.

—I guess.

Eugene held out his hand. Jon took it in a firm shake.

—Good luck.

—And to you, Eugene.

—You’ll find me when it’s all over?

—If it’s at all possible, yes, you have my word. Now, go.

They shook again. Eugene held Jon’s gaze for another moment, then released his hand and left. He looked back once when he got to the door, but neither man said anything. Jon watched him go, the most unexpected of smiles still on his lips. And Eugene, with whom this story began, now leaves it for his own safety and to his own destiny.

106. Three.