Armageddon’s Children

TWELVE

IT WAS MIDDAY in the ruins of the Emerald City, and the Ghosts were playing stickball in the streets of Pioneer Square.

Stickball most closely resembled baseball, a game none of the Ghosts had ever seen, though they'd read about in books. They didn't know anything about stickball, either, for that matter, other than what Panther taught them. Panther claimed to have played it on the streets of San Francisco. He showed them what he knew, and they made up the rest.

They had figured out what innings were and how many they should play, but nine innings made the game go on too long so they settled on five. They had figured out that in baseball there were nine or maybe ten players on the field, but they didn't have that many Ghosts, so they settled for teams of three or four. They had a rubber ball, one that was kind of worn and squishy, but no bat, so they used a sawed–off broomstick. The batter just tossed the ball in the air, hit it as hard as possible, and took off running. If someone caught the ball, the runner was out. If it was dropped, the runner could keep going. But you could still touch him with the ball or throw it at him and hit him, in which case he was out, too. The game was played in the open space just north of the old pergola—Owl had looked the name up in one of her history books. There were four bases, old tires laid out in an irregular formation because the open space and surrounding streets were clogged with debris and derelict vehicles. The base paths looked a little like a maze. They hadn't figured out strikes and balls, either, but that didn't matter since there was no pitcher and they had decided early on that the batter should just keep swinging at the ball until he hit it.

They allowed three outs per side per inning, but sometimes they extended that number to four when one of the little kids made an out, like Squirrel or Candle, just because it seemed fair.

It wasn't the stickball kids had played fifty years earlier in the streets of the cities of America, but it worked just as well. It gave them something to do besides forage and scout, and Owl was forever telling them they needed to have fun now and then. Panther, in particular, liked this form of fun, having thought up the game in the first place, and he spent much of his time urging the others to play it.

Just now, it was the fourth inning and he was batting, facing a field that consisted of Chalk, Sparrow, and Bear. Fixit and Candle were waiting for their turn at bat. Owl was acting as umpire, a role she was regularly assigned, as much because she was the only one any of them trusted to be fair and impartial as because of the wheelchair. Squirrel was still in their underground lair, recovering from his fever. While he had insisted he was strong enough to come up and play ball with the others, Owl had told him he needed at least one more day in bed. River was keeping him company.

Hawk stood off to one side, the odd man out in the game and just as happy to be so because he was preoccupied with mulling over the consequences of Candle's vision of the previous night. Cheney dozed in a nearby doorway, big head resting on his paws, eyes closed, ears pricked, missing nothing.

"Better move way back, children!" Panther shouted to the fielders, tossing the ball up casually as he took his batting stance. "Hey, I said way back 'cause this baby's gonna fly!"

Then he hit it a ton, his smooth, hard swing catching the ball flush on the end of the broomstick and sending it soaring far out into the square. Chalk and Bear, who were already playing pretty far out in deference to Panther's superior athletic ability, backed up hurriedly. But the ball dropped between them as they misjudged its distance, and Panther skipped around the bases, tossing out taunts about ineptitude and bad eyesight. Unfortunately for him, he was having such a good time that he failed to account for Sparrow, who was waiting at second base for the relay, and he ran right into her. Sparrow, furious, kicked him in the shins and started beating on him. Howling in dismay and at the same time laughing, Panther broke away.

By this time, Bear had chased down the ball. Wheeling back, he gave it a mighty heave. Bear was strong, and the ball flew a long way. Sparrow tried to catch it, but the ball caromed off her hands, took an odd hop, and bounced into

Panther, who was just coming into home plate.

"You're out!" shouted Sparrow.

"Out!" Panther laughed. "No frickin' way."

"Out!" Sparrow repeated. "The ball hit you on the base path. The rules say you're out!"

Panther picked up the broomstick, waved it at her threateningly, and then threw it down again. "What are you talking about? That don't count! Bear just heaved the ball in! He didn't try to hit me, so I ain't out! Besides, it hit you first!"

"Doesn't matter who it hit first. It hit you last, and you're out!"

"You're frickin' crazy!"

Sparrow stalked over to him, brushing her mop of straw–colored hair out of her blue eyes, brow furrowed in anger. "Don't talk to me like that! Don't use that street language on me, Panther Puss! Owl, tell him he's out!"

The rest of them came crowding in to stand around Panther and Sparrow, who by now were right in each other's faces, yelling. Hawk watched it for a moment, amused. Then he saw Owl give him an irritated glance as she wheeled over to try to break it up, and he decided that enough was enough.

"Hey, all right, that's the end of it!" he shouted them down, striding over. "Panther, you're not out. You can't be out when the ball bounces off someone or something else first. That's the rule. But," he held up one hand to silence Sparrow's objection, "you have to go back to first for running over Sparrow. Isn't that right, Owl?" He looked over at her and winked.

She gave him a thumbs–up. "Play ball!" she shouted, one of the few things she knew they said in baseball when they wanted the game to resume, motioning Panther back to first base.

Grumbling, the players all returned to their positions. "Still say that's bull!" snapped Panther over his shoulder as he slouched away.

Hawk ambled after Owl as she wheeled back behind home plate, hands in his pockets, head lowered so that he could watch the movement of his feet on the pavement ahead of him. "I don't know about these games," he said.

Owl glanced over her shoulder. "It's good for them, Hawk. They need the games. They need something to take their minds off what's happening around them.

They need to get all that energy and aggression out." She gestured at him. "You should be playing, too. Why don't you take Fixit's place for a while?"

He shrugged. "Maybe later."

She wheeled into position behind home plate and reached for his hand as he stopped beside her. "At least tell me what's bothering you. And don't say nothing because I know better. Is this about Tessa?"

It was, of course, because everything was about Tessa these days. But it was also about Candle's vision, and he hadn't told Owl of that yet. He wasn't sure he should tell anyone because he didn't know what it meant or what he should do about it. He was still working that through, trying to decide if he should make preparations to leave the city and, if so, where he should think about going.

Leaving meant uprooting everyone from the only stable home they had known.

It meant finding another place to go to, abandoning the familiar and striking off into the unknown. It meant finding a way to persuade Tessa to go with them, to leave her parents and her life inside the compound, to give up everything she had ever known.

In short, it meant turning everyone's world upside down. He didn't have the first notion how to go about doing that.

"While you're deciding how much you want to tell me," Owl said, breaking into his thoughts, "there's something I need to tell you.

It's about River. She's been going somewhere on her own without telling anyone.

Not at night, but during the daytime, when the rest of us are busy with other things and don't notice her absence." She paused. "I think she might be meeting someone."

Hawk knelt beside her, one eye on Fixit, who was standing at the plate getting ready to hit the ball. "How do you know this?"

"Candle told me. You know she and River are like sisters; they don't have many secrets. But this was one. She noticed River sneaking out and when River came back, she confronted her. River wouldn't tell her anything, just said she had to trust her and not to tell anyone. Candle didn't, until yesterday. She became worried after you got back from your visit with the Weatherman and she heard about the dead Croaks, so she decided to tell me."

Hawk shook his head. "Who would she be meeting?"

"I don't know. But Candle says she was taking something with her in a bag when she saw her leave that one time. She thinks she's been doing this for a while. Hawk, I don't know what to do. I don't want to confront her about it. She would know it was Candle who told me, and that would ruin their relationship.

They're too close for me to do that."

He nodded. "But we have to do something."

"Maybe you could keep an eye on her, and when she sneaks away again, you could follow her."

That sounded a good deal easier than it was likely to turn out to be, he thought. River was pretty good at looking out for herself, and she would not be caught off guard. If he was going to find anything out by following her, he would have to be particularly skillful about it. It was not something he was anxious to attempt, in any case. Following any of his family secretly was a demonstration of his lack of trust in them and a betrayal of their trust in him.

"I don't know," he said to Owl.

"I don't know, either," she agreed, "but I don't think we can let her go off by herself like this without knowing what she's doing. Being a family means assuming responsibility for each other, making sure that we look out for each other. I don't think we're doing that if we ignore the possibility that she is putting herself in danger."

He knew it was true, but that didn't make him feel any better about it. He resented the fact that this was happening now, when there was so much else that needed his attention. He wanted to confront River on the spot and tell her that he didn't need this added distraction, but he knew that wasn't the way to handle things.

"Let me think about it," he said.

Owl's attention was back on the game. "Don't take too long. I don't think this can wait."

Hawk didn't think it could, either.

WHEN THE GAME was finished, he took Panther, Bear, Fixit, and Candle with him to forage for purification tablets for the catchment system. They had been running low on the tablets for some time, and he had been delaying replenishing their stock because it meant traveling all the way across the city to a supply source nearly two miles away, a distance he didn't normally like to travel. But clean drinking water was a must, and he couldn't put off the trip any longer.

Owl and the others retired to the underground to work on cleaning and mending chores, busywork that would keep them all occupied until the others returned. Hawk took the biggest and the strongest with him, a necessary precaution on a journey into territory that was only marginally familiar. Candle was the exception, but he took Candle because of her ability to sense danger. It would take them all afternoon to go and return, and there was no guarantee they would find what they were looking for, but at least with Candle present they would have a better chance at staying safe.

The day was gray and overcast and the streets deserted. It rained on them as they walked, a misting that left them beaded with water droplets. Panther was still griping about the outcome of the stickball game, which his team had lost.

He walked wing on the right with Fixit on the left, Hawk on point, and Bear and Candle in the center. Hawk glanced over at him every now and then, distracted by his mumbling, half inclined to tell him to shut up and knowing it wouldn't do any good. All four boys carried prods. Panther held his like he was hoping for a chance to use it.

Panther was carrying around a lot of pent–up anger.

He had been born on the streets of San Francisco, the youngest of five brothers and sisters. He was called Anan Kawanda. He was mostly African

American, but with other blood mixed in, too. His father was dead before he was born. No one ever talked about what had happened to him, and when he asked he was told that no one knew. His mother was tough and determined, part of an extended family living in Presidio Park, a group that disdained the compounds and the countryside alike. They lived in tents and deserted buildings and even on platforms constructed in trees. There were several hundred of them, all part of the same neighborhood before the move to the Presidio. Most were black and Hispanic. Most knew more than a little something about staying alive. His mother and the other adults believed that survival depended on adaptation to the altered environment, and that in turn meant building up immunity to the things that threatened you. The changes in air, water, and soil could be tolerated once you developed this immunity, and living behind walls or fleeing to the countryside was not the answer. They were city people, and the city was where they belonged.

Freaks were a threat for which there was no immunity, and some of the bigger, meaner ones–the mutations–preyed on people like them, people living out in the open. But the community was well armed with flechettes, prods, and stingers–dart guns loaded with a particularly toxic poison. They organized themselves into protective units within their enclave, and they never went anywhere alone. Sentries stood watch at all times, and the children were heavily guarded. There were rumors of rogue militias roaming the countryside and attacking the compounds. There were rumors of atrocities committed by creatures that weren't human, that were something less, creatures of a darker origin.

Neither of these dangers had surfaced in San Francisco yet, but no one was taking any chances.

There was a plan for evacuation from the city when they did appear, but no one really believed they would need it. Panther grew up playing at survival and quickly passed into practicing the real thing. In the brave new world of collapsed governments and wild–eyed fanatics, of plagues and poisons and madness, of bombs and chemical strikes, childhood in the traditional sense was over early. By the time he was seven, he already knew how to use all the community weapons. He knew about the Freaks and their habits. He could hunt and forage and read tracks. He knew which medicines counteracted which sicknesses and how to recognize when places and things were to be avoided. He could keep watch all night. He could stand and fight if it were needed.

He grew up fast, athletic, and strong, a quick study and an eager volunteer. By the time he was twelve, it was already accepted that one day he would be a leader of the community. Even his older brothers and sisters deferred to his superior judgment and skills. Panther worked hard at being accepted, at being the best. In the back of his mind, he knew he'd need to be. Talk of the armies that were sweeping the eastern half of the country continued to surface.

Everyone knew that things were getting worse, that the dangers were growing.

Once, long ago, there had been talk about things going back to the way they were—a way Panther knew nothing about and could only envision. But that sort of talk had diminished over time. It was accepted that the past was lost forever and nothing would ever be the same.

It bothered the older men and women, the ones who remembered a little of better times. It was less troubling to Panther and his peers, who only knew things as they were and felt comfortable with the familiar, no matter how dangerous. It seemed to Panther that the best any of them could do was to take things one day at a time and watch their backs.

For a while, that was enough.

Then one day, shortly after he turned fourteen, he returned with four others from a weeklong foraging expedition and found everyone he had left behind dead. They lay sprawled all across the park, their bodies rigid with agony, arms and legs flung wide, mouths agape, blood leaking from their ears and noses.

There was no sign of violence, no evidence of what had killed them. It looked as if whatever was responsible had disposed of them quickly. It had the appearance of plague.

Panther searched the camp all the rest of the day and into the next, prowling through discarded containers and debris, desperate to find the cause.

He did not think he would find any peace until he solved the mystery. But nothing revealed itself. When it finally became apparent that it wasn't going to do so, he broke down and cried, kneeling amid the bodies, rocking back and forth until he felt emptied out. Something changed inside him that day, something that he knew would never change back. Everything he had believed in was turned upside down. Preparation and skills alone weren't what would save you in this life.

What would save you was luck. Pure chance. What would save you was something over which you had no control at all.

He buried his family–his mother and brothers and sisters— ignoring the protestations of his companions that he was risking his own health by touching the dead, refusing to listen to their warnings that what had killed them was almost certainly contagious. When he was done, he said good–bye to the others, who had chosen to stay in the city and to seek admittance into one of the compounds, salvaged what he could of weapons and supplies, packed them on his back, and started walking north.

Weeks later, he arrived in Seattle and found Hawk and the Ghosts and his new home.

For the first week after he became a member of this new family, he was willing to talk about what had happened to him. After that, he never spoke of it, consigning it to the past, a part of his life that was over and done with.

But Hawk could tell that he hadn't forgotten it; he simply kept it locked away inside, white–hot and corrosive. The pain and anger were always eating at him, and he had yet to find an effective means of dealing with them, of healing himself so that he could put the past to rest.

Sometimes it seemed as if he never would.

Hawk glanced over at him now, at the dark intense features, at the restless, troubled eyes. Panther caught him looking, and he glanced quickly away.

The trek through the city went swiftly and without incident. They encountered no Freaks, no other tribes, and no obstacles that slowed their passage. The day stayed dark and the air damp. Mist rose from the pavement and clung to the buildings, cloaking everything in gauzy trailers. Before long, the skeleton of the Space Needle came into view over the tops of the buildings, its ragged spire lifting skyward like a torch gone dark. Once, people could take an elevator to its top to an eating place and view deck that looked out over the whole of the city. But that was back in the days before hand–cranked generators and stairs were the best anyone could hope for, when there was citywide electricity and the elevators still worked.

It must have been something to see, he thought suddenly. Not the city–you could still see the city if you climbed to the viewpoints on the hills that surrounded it–but the population that made the city come alive, all the people and the traffic and the movement and color before everything fell apart.

Their destination appeared ahead, a broad two–story building with its plate–glass windows broken out and its facade scorched by fire and scoured by the elements. Hawk had found it by accident on a foraging expedition two years earlier: a storage and distribution center for chemical supplies, including purification tablets. The stock was too extensive to carry out in a single load or to try to store in the limited space of their underground home. But the tablets were precious and difficult to find in a time when retail outlets had long since been pillaged and emptied of useful goods. So he had taken what he could pack on his back and hidden the rest in the basement behind a cluster of empty packing crates. So far, his secret stash had not been disturbed.

They walked to the front of the building and stood looking through the broken–out windows for a moment.

"So what's the plan, Bird‑Man?" Panther asked in a singsong voice.

Hawk ignored him, casting about the shadows and the mist, listening to the silence and trusting to his instincts. He peered down the streets where they tunneled between the buildings and through the misty haze. Rain dampened the pavement, leaving it slick and oily, and the air smelled of metal and old fish.

He glanced at Candle, who met his gaze and shook her head. No danger so far, she was saying.

He turned to the others. "Fixit, you wait just inside, out of sight, and keep watch. The rest of us will go get the tablets."

They climbed through one of the window frames, avoiding the door, which was barred and chained. Inside, the building opened through layers of deep shadows and long, hazy streaks of gray light to a jumbled collection of shelves, tables, counters, boxes, and debris of all sorts. Leaving Fixit at the front wall, Hawk took the others toward a half wall that separated the front and back of the store. Inside the half wall, a trapdoor opened onto stairs leading down into the basement. Once again, Hawk hesitated. He didn't like the feel of the entry, never had. Then, brushing aside his fears, he switched on his solar–powered torch and started down.

The stairs ended in the very center of the basement, which was ink–black and musty and spread away in all directions to walls only faintly visible in the dim light of Hawk's torch. Packing crates were stacked against the back wall, concealing the supplies they had come for. The wall to their left was partially collapsed, leaving a black hole that opened into the basement of the cavernous adjoining warehouse. The hole was ragged and slick with moisture, and the room beyond so thick with shadows that it was impossible to see anything. A deep, pervasive silence hung over everything.

Right away Candle said, "Something's down here." She pointed to the hole in the wall and the impenetrable blackness beyond. "In there."

Everyone swung about to face the collapsed wall, prods coming up defensively. They stood motionless for a moment, listening. Nothing happened. No movement, no sounds. The seconds ticked away, and the basement seemed to grow stuffy and warm.

Finally, knowing he had to do something, Hawk started forward to take a closer look.

Candle grasped his arm instantly, pulling him back. "Don't go in there!"

Hawk looked at her in surprise. "What is it?"

She shook her head. Her face was pale and drawn, and her eyes wide with fear. She could barely make herself answer him. "We have to get out of here. We have to get out right away."

The way she said it made it clear that she felt there was no room for argument. Hawk looked at the others. "Go back up the stairs, right now."

"Wait a minute!" Panther was right in his face, his voice an angry hiss.

"We came all the way across town to turn tail and run? You want us to leave the tablets behind?"

"Go back up the stairs," Hawk repeated.

"Go back up the stairs yourself!" Panther snapped, and wheeled away.

As the others watched in disbelief, he started toward the back of the room and the deep shadows, ignoring the looks directed after him, oblivious to Candle's hiss of warning. Hawk started to follow, then stopped as he realized he could not turn Panther around without risking a confrontation that would likely do more harm than good. Not knowing what else to do, he swung the thin beam of his torch after the retreating figure to help light his way. Panther reached the piles of crates and moved through them, neither hesitating nor hurrying.

Then, abruptly, he disappeared from view.

Hawk held his breath and waited. He glanced left quickly. Within the black hole of the collapsed wall, everything was still. But the shadows of the room seemed to coalesce into something huge.

In the next instant Panther reemerged from between the crates, carrying a box of the precious tablets, his prod cradled loosely in the crook of his arms.

He crossed the room to where the others waited, went past them without stopping, and started up the stairs.

"Come along, children," he sneered.

No one argued. They went up from the basement with hurried glances over their shoulders, crossed to the front wall of the building where Fixit was waiting, and climbed back through the broken window. Outside, they stood uneasily in the street and stared at one another.

"What happened?" Fixit asked in bewilderment, looking from one face to the next.

"Good thing you got me along to do the tough stuff," Panther declared, giving Hawk a meaningful glance. "Got to have someone who ain't afraid of the dark. Got to have someone to face down the bogeyman when he crawls out of his hole."

Hawk didn't reply, even though he wanted to tell Panther that he'd better not disobey him like that again, ever. Instead, he motioned them into the wing formation and they set off for home, moving back toward the center of the city.

Candle walked next to him and stared straight ahead, her young face tight and hard and her thin body rigid. Hawk left her alone. She knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that they had gotten away with something back there, even if Panther didn't believe it. He was thinking that they had been lucky. He was thinking of the dead Lizard and the nest of Croaks and the possibility that there was something new and dangerous in the city.

But he was also thinking of her vision of the previous night–that something was coming for them, something that was going to kill them–thinking that maybe the world beyond their underground home was closing in on them in a way none of them had anticipated.

Thinking that maybe they had better be ready for it when it did.