The Filter Trap (19 page)

Moving six blocks in the flooded streets of Manhattan proved difficult. Once they paddled out of Bryant Park, the abandoned buildings always seemed to block their view of the Empire State Building. They had to take a long way around to avoid a possible fuel line explosion from the hanging Osprey. It never exploded, eventually tugging the trees down enough to drop softly into the water, making a wave that nearly dumped the survivors from their rafts again.

At times they abandoned ship anyway, since the water often dipped low enough to allow the street to ground it. The Marines did hasty sweeps of every shop they could climb into on the Avenue of the Americas, eventually finding oversize waterproof boots stashed in an upstairs attic of a fashion outlet. However, they were still quick to move to higher ground to avoid frostbite in the icy water. More than once a fresh wave rushed up the alleys and down the streets when buildings further into the city finally collapsed. The group of four moved through the near-freezing winter water with shivers and frequent stops, alerted to every strange sound that echoed through the tall corridors of Midtown.

Occasionally the group stopped when survivors shouted from rooftops, but then kept going because there was nothing to be done for them. Often the lower entrances of buildings, situated at street level or below, were impossibly blocked to any entry without a backhoe. More than once, this knowledge did little to comfort the survivors the Marines had to leave behind. A few times the group of four was pelted with debris from higher up, accompanied by desperate pleas for help that went ignored.

The early December Sunset caught up to the Marines, who hadn’t counted on the extra time spent walking in knee-high water over debris. Only a week removed from the solstice and Manhattanhenge, the dour yellow ball lit the water in a brief broiling flame that merged sky and street.

“The Sun is going down,” Natalie said, covering her eyes.

“We’re almost to the Empire State Building,” Kam assured her. “One more block.”

“I know, we’re at Herald Square. The clock monument still stands. Macy’s is just over there. It’s multi-level, maybe we should camp out there.”

Minor squinted. “Someone else got there first. There’s fires not lit by the Sun in the upper windows. Too many points of entry, too many risk factors, and too few Marines to secure your safety in there.”

When they rounded the corner they saw the Empire’s entrance doors were jammed shut by an overturned car. The elegant stained glass that normally charmed the high-ceilinged lobby remained intact, and their only way in. The Marines climbed over the car and began bashing against one of the large vertical sections of the stained glass lattice.

After smashing out most of the glass, the Marines helped Kam and Natalie through. Inside, the supremely elegant old lobby remained virtually untouched by the tsunami, aside from several feet of standing water trapped by the watertight doors.

“Good thing it’s flooded,” Silversun insisted. “You don’t have to rappel down from here.”

The four quickly dropped into the water to discover it was colder than outside.

“Get to the escalator at the back, quick!” Minor warned, dragging the two civilians as best he could.

At the escalators the group ran up to the next floor, where Silversun started a fire in a trash can after disabling smoke alarms.

“You’ve got to strip,” Kam told Natalie.

Through chattering teeth she replied, “I hoped this moment would be a tad more romantic.”

“We all gotta get these ice-cold clothes off before we get hypothermia,” Minor said.

Kam raised an eyebrow. “Besides, the light from the fire, reflecting off all the granite in here . . .”

“Oh shut up,” Natalie said, turning from the three men to undress.

“Hold on!” Kam said, running forward through the empty tourist visit line to the ticket office.

He returned with coats and hats, but no pants. “Lost and found.”

They gave the bulk of the clothing to Natalie before attempting to warm themselves and their clothing by the trash can fire, occasionally grabbing paper from the ticket office for fuel.

“We should have stopped by Macy's anyway,” Natalie shivered.

“Too late now,” Minor grumbled.

“So what’s your plan?”

“We saw survivors at the top. We head up when ready.”

“I’m ready to get rescued now, what are you waiting for?”

Silversun moved her face into the firelight. “Just like the folks shouting from the rooftops, they’ll want help, or worse. We aren’t here for them, so we have to make our approach when they’re still asleep. We’ve got plenty of food in the vending machines down here, trash to fuel this fire. I’ll have to bust some windows to diffuse the smoke, but now that it’s dark outside few will see it. You and the doc can sleep till early morning. Corporal Minor and I will guard in shifts and head up before first light.”

“Do you know when that is?” Kam asked. “We’re not in the same orbit anymore, the days are shorter, if you haven’t noticed.”

“We’ve noticed,” Minor said. “We’re giving you six hours, then we go up.”

“Won’t it take us hours to walk up the stairs?” Natalie asked.

“Only if we have to. This building has sizable backup generators for the elevators in case of emergencies. I think this qualifies. I don’t want to test it now and alert anyone up top we’re down here, but if everything goes to plan we just take the elevator to the top and head straight to the radio room.”

“Then what?”

The other three turned to her in surprise.

“Then our resident radio expert calls for help!” Silversun reminded her.

“Glad to know I’m needed,” Natalie stated and turned over in her blanket, closing her eyes.

“I should sleep next to her . . . for warmth.” Kam said, grabbing a blanket of his own and sidling up to Natalie. On the other side, facing away from the flames, Natalie smiled.

“Sure,” Silversun chuckled. “I’ll take the first watch so Corporal Minor can sleep next to you, Kam, . . . for warmth.”

Natalie couldn’t help but chortle as Minor grumbled and turned the other way.

“Good news. Elevators have power,” Silversun said as she woke up Natalie and Kam.

“What’s the bad news?” Natalie asked.

Silversun waggled a map from the ticket office. “The broadcasting room is on the 86th floor.”

“Right where everybody else is,” Kam added.

The Marines were already dressed back in their camo, so Kam and Natalie happily redressed under blankets in their warmed clothes. The four walked past the long empty lines, through the darkened rooms with displays about the building's long history, and into one of the small elevators to the 86th floor.

Their hearts raced when Minor pressed the button in the dark elevator, as it jolted them and began the quick ascent. Kam and Natalie felt like cheering, hopefully only minutes away from calling for help and a swift rescue. The Marines looked nervous.

“How long will it take the Kearsarge to send another chopper?” Kam asked.

Minor gave him a strange look. “Kearsarge is in Florida by now. Our only hope is to convince the folks in the Catskills to swing down this way.”

The doors opened with a customary ding that normally excited tourists eager to get a bird’s-eye view of America’s densest metropolis. The group that stepped out this morning was in no hurry to see the city’s corpse from the observation deck.

“Stay close to the interior column,” Silversun advised. “The radio booth is this way.”

They tiptoed to the booth quickly. Natalie got to work while the Marines guarded the door. The floor stayed silent.

“The survivors we saw up here before must be sleeping on the eastern side for warmth,” Kam deduced.

“Dammit!” Natalie banged her fists on the console, unsettling decades of dust on the gray and black aged equipment. “These are just props!”

“What!” the other three asked.

“This isn’t a real broadcasting booth, nothing’s happened in here for a long time, maybe never.”

“Shit, she’s right,” Silversun said, picking up a fallen placard by the window, shaken out by the earthquake the day before.

“
The equipment you see in this booth resembles the type used in the 1930s by NBC to broadcast live television and radio from the 86th floor. Today the building is still an important landmark for broadcasting, serving several television and radio stations, although no live entertainment is performed in the tower
.”

“Shit,” Minor moaned from the doorway. “We’ve got company.”

A man banged on the booth window and shouted a joyous “Hello!”

The Marines brandished their rifles. “Back up!”

He complied, looking confused.

“C’mon, we gotta get out of here before he wakes up his friends,” Minor said, ushering the other three out.

“Aren’t you here to rescue us?” the man asked.

The Marines didn’t say anything, but kept their rifles trained as they backed away around the central corridor.

“Hey!” the man screamed.

The Marines leveled their rifles. “Shut up!”

He put his hands up.

“Wait.” Natalie stopped and put her hand over the tip of Minor’s rifle. She approached the man. “Do you know where the broadcasting control room is?”

“What are you doing?” Silversun whispered.

“He’s wearing overalls. He works here. They don’t broadcast from the booth, but the antennas still work just fine. If the controllers use anything like my company’s software I can hijack the signal from the control room.”

“Where is the control room?” Silversun repeated Natalie’s question.

“C-control room?” the man stammered.

“A bunch of computer stacks, servers, and metal cylinders. Probably up there somewhere.” Natalie pointed through the ceiling at the antennas over the observation deck.

“Y-yeah. Okay. I got you. We went up there looking for a radio to call for help but nobody knew how to work any of it. I can take you there.”

“Quietly,” Minor whispered.

“S-sure.”

Another elevator and a flight of winding small stairs brought the group to the broadcasting equipment hidden in the building’s thick top spire. Despite the temperature outside, the room kept warm with generators buzzing and equipment humming. The compact space looked more like the innards of a vertically oriented submarine than a broadcast booth.

“This must be one of the island’s main emergency broadcast centers, no wonder the generators are still on,” Natalie said, rushing past duplexers and filters. She looked for something, running her fingers along the shelves of gray controller racks.

Finally she found a console, a dusty CRT plugged into several old workstations and a monitor switch. She cracked the old switch knob. “Here we go, a modulator. Corporal, what’s your search and rescue FM frequency?”

“Uh,” Minor struggled to recall.

“40.5, ma’am,” Silversun answered. “Chopper rescue in Baghdad. Senior officers called it
getting a 40
. I thought they were talking about alcohol until we had to adjust a crank radio at 4am to rescue a couple flyboys who got too close to the rooftops.”

“The TV band gets close to that, might work.”

“Calling for h-help?” the frazzled man asked, still kept at gunpoint.

“Your friends wave at us when we flew by yesterday in the Osprey?” Minor asked rhetorically.

“Yes! We waved to you!” His excitement turned sour when he realized the Marines had been on the chopper that landed somewhere else, then tumbled to Bryant Park in flames.

Sensing his concern, Minor assured, “We will let them know you’re here.”

“Sure,” the man said, sinking to the floor.

“Guys!” Natalie called their attention. “We’ve got another problem. I can send a message to the FM rescue frequency, but I have no way to record it. We’ve got a radio tower but no microphones.”

“Well how does the usual signal get to the tower?” Kam asked.

Natalie snapped her finger. “Right. The hardlines. They get their data packets the same way we do, from the Internet.”

“But the Net is down,” Minor said.

“It doesn’t matter, we just need to find the servers and plug something in to replace the data stream with our own.”

Kam clapped his hands together. “A cell phone!”

The four survivors of the Osprey crash checked their pockets, but all had lost, drowned, or drained the batteries of their phones.

“Here,” the man from downstairs said, offering his. “I was saving it to make a call when the networks went back up. Everybody else has already exhausted their batteries trying in vain. I turned mine off.”

“Well what do we say?” Minor asked.

“Thank you,” Natalie said, gingerly taking the man’s phone.

“No, over the air. What kind of message are we broadcasting?”

“They’ll only
hear
it,” Natalie said, plopping the phone in Minor’s hand. “Record who and where you are while I find a way to get the data into this old system.”

Minor gave her a blank look. The man grabbed it and found the video recording button, pressed it and handed it back.

While Minor executed a gruff but information-packed plea for help, Natalie grabbed Kam’s hand and led him back behind rows of equipment racks. When out of the Marines’ line of sight, she spun him to face her and gave him a long kiss on the lips.

“You want to sneak off to make out
now
?” He protested only slightly.

“I don’t know how many opportunities we have left.” She pointed at the side of a long run of equipment racks. “Follow the cables coming out of those. When you find a CAT-5 let me know.”

He puckered his lips at her for another kiss. She pushed him in the opposite direction.

“And . . . sent.” Natalie clicked the mouse, loading the recorded audio into a loop playing on a downgraded FM television signal to the military rescue frequency.

“You think they’ll hear it?” Silversun asked.

“Maybe not at first, although enough radios should be tuned to search and rescue after the Event. I set the machine to repeat it for six hours and then stop. Hopefully we’re outta here by then.”

She pointed at the corner of the equipment room. “If they send someone from the Catskills they’ll come from the north. We should get back downstairs. Catskills is only a hundred miles away, could be here in less than an hour.”

“An hour!” the man perked up. “Wait till the others hear this.”

The Marines perked up too, pointing their rifles again.

“Wait,” Kam cautioned. “We have to go down to look for the chopper. Anyone that’s here is going to see us anyway. And for all we know they’ll send multiple choppers for all of them.”

“How many is all of you?” Silversun wiggled the end of her rifle at the man.

“J-just ten. There were more, but when they saw you crash they left and never came back.”

“Probably send a Huey,” Minor said.

“H-how big is a Huey?”

“Not big enough.”