Armageddon’s Children

FIVE

HAWK WOKE EARLY the next morning, restless with anticipation. That night he would meet with Tessa, and meetings with Tessa always made him run hot and cold. He lay quietly on his mattress, staying warm beneath his blanket in the cold, thinking of her. As he did so, he listened to the boys sleeping around him, Bear snoring like some great machine while Panther, Chalk, and Fixit added harmonic wheezing sounds. He envisioned the same scene playing out in the other bedrooms, the girls sleeping in the one farthest away, Owl in the middle room with Squirrel, keeping the little boy close until he got better. Cheney would be curled up somewhere out by the entry door, a fly wing's rustle away from coming awake to protect them.

He sat up slowly and stared off through the darkness to where the faint glow of the night candle lit the common room. He liked waking before the others and listening to them, knowing they were all safely together. They were his family and this was their home. He was the one who had discovered it. Had discovered the whole underground city, in fact. Not before the Freaks, but before the other tribes, the Cats and the Gulls and the Wolves. He had found it five years earlier while exploring the ruins of Pioneer Square after arriving in Seattle and quickly deciding he was not going to live in the compounds. Not that any of them would have taken him in anyway, another orphan, another castoff.

Tessa might have persuaded them at Safeco, but he had known early on that life in a compound wasn't what he wanted. He couldn't say why, even now. In part, it was his abhorrence of the idea of confinement in a walled fortress, a claustrophobic existence for someone who had always run free. In part, it was his need to be responsible for his fate and to not give that responsibility over to anyone else. He had always been independent, always self–sufficient, always a loner. He knew that, even though the particulars of his past were hazy and difficult to remember. Even the faces of his parents were vague and indistinct memories that came and went and sometimes seemed to change entirely.

It didn't matter, though. The past was of no significance to him; the future was what mattered. All of the tribes accepted this, but the Ghosts especially. Their greeting to others said as much: We haunt the ruins. It was a constant reminder of the state of their existence. The past belonged to the grown–ups who had destroyed it. The future belonged to the kids of the tribes.

Those in the compounds did not understand this, nor would they have accepted it if they had understood. They believed themselves to be the future. But they were wrong. They were just another part of the problem. Hawk knew this. He had seen the future in his vision, and the future was promised only to those who would keep it safe.

His thoughts wavered and broke, and he was left alone with the darkness and the sounds of the sleepers around him. He sat motionless for a moment longer, then rose and pulled on yesterday's jeans and sweatshirt. Tonight was his turn to bathe, and tomorrow he would get a fresh change of clothes. Owl kept them all on a strict schedule; sickness and disease were enemies against which they had few defenses.

Dressed, he walked out into the common room to sit where the candle burned and he could read. But Owl was there ahead of him, curled up under a blanket on the couch, an open book in her lap. She looked up as he entered and smiled.

"Couldn't sleep?"

He shook his head. "You?"

"I don't sleep much anyway." She patted the couch next to her, and he sat.

"Squirrel's fever broke. He should be up and about by tomorrow. Maybe even yet today, if I let him." She shook her head, her sleep–tousled hair falling into her face. "I think he was lucky."

"We're all lucky. Otherwise we would be dead. Like that Lizard. Like maybe

Persia will be if I don't get the pleneten from Tessa." He paused. "Think she'll give it to me?"

He watched Owl's soft face tighten and worry lines appear across her forehead as she considered. He liked her face, liked the way you could always tell what she was thinking. There was nothing complicated about Owl; what you saw was what you got. Maybe that was what made her so good with the others. It made him like her all the more.

"She loves you," Owl said. She let the words hang in the air. "So I think she will get you the medicine if she can." She pursed her lips. "But it is dangerous for her to do so. You know what might happen if she's caught."

He knew. Thieves were thrown from the walls. But he didn't believe such a punishment would be visited on Tessa. Her parents were powerful figures in the compound hierarchy, and she was their only child. They would protect her from any real harm. She might be exiled from the compound, though, if her transgression was severe enough. He would like that, he thought. Then she could come live with him.

"Persia is dying," he said finally. "What am I supposed to do?"

A child is always dying somewhere." She brushed back the unruly strands of hair from her forehead. "But I believe we must do what we can to stop it from happening–all of us, including Tessa or anyone else who has a chance to help, inside the compounds or not. Just be careful."

She put the book aside, careful to mark her place with a scrap of paper, drawing her withered legs farther up under the blanket as if to find deeper warmth. He glanced over at the dark shape of Cheney sprawled in the corner by the door, thinking that he didn't need to be told to be careful; he was careful all the time anyway.

But he let it pass, his mind on something else. "Why did you tell that story last night?"

"About the boy and the evil King?"

"About the boy leading the children to the Promised Land. What were you doing?"

"Reminding them of your vision. Candle knew that right away. She told me so afterward. Maybe some of the others knew it, too. What difference does it make?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe it was the way you told it. You changed things. You made things up. It felt like you were stealing."

She stared at him, genuinely surprised. "I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have told it the way I did. But it needs to be told, Hawk, and last night telling it just felt right. I wanted to reassure everyone that we have a goal in our lives and the goal is to find a better, safer place to live. That is your vision, isn't it? To take us to a better place?"

"You know it is. I've said so often enough. I've dreamed it."

She reached out and placed her hand over his. "Your dream is an old one, Hawk. Guiding others to safety, finding the Promised Land. As old as time, I imagine. It has been dreamed and told hundreds of times over the years in one form or another. I don't pretend to know all the particulars of your vision. You haven't shared them with anyone, have you? Not even Tessa. So how can I steal them from you? Besides, I would never do such a thing."

"I know." He flushed, embarrassed by his accusation. "But hearing that story made me uneasy. Maybe its because I don't know enough about what's

supposed to happen. I don't know how we'll know when it's time to leave. I don't know how we'll know where we're supposed to go. I keep waiting to find out, waiting for someone to tell me. But my dreams don't. They only tell me that it will happen."

"If your dreams tell you that much, then you have to believe that they will eventually tell you the rest." She patted his hand. "I won't tell the story again. Not until you tell me to. Not until you know something more yourself."

He nodded, realizing he was being petty, but at the same time feeling a need to be protective, too. The dream was all he had. It was the bedrock of his leadership, the reason he was able to hold the Ghosts together. Without the dream, he was just another street kid, orphaned and abandoned, living out his life in a post apocalyptic world where everything had gone mad. Without the dream, he had nothing to give to those who relied on him.

"You'll dream the rest one day soon," Owl reassured him, as if reading his mind. "You will, Hawk."

"I know that," he replied quickly.

But, in truth, he didn't.

IT IS TESSA who brings Owl to him when he is still new to the city and living alone in the underground. He is just fourteen years old, and Owl, who is called Margaret then, is an infinitely older and more mature eighteen. Hawk has gone to meet Tessa for one of their nighttime assignations, and she surprises him by bringing along a small, plain, quiet girl in a wheelchair.

They are standing in the lee of the last wall of an otherwise collapsed building, not a hundred yards from Safeco, when Tessa tells him what the older girl is doing there.

"Margaret can't live in the compound any longer," she says. "She needs a different home."

Hawk looks at the girl, at the chair, and at the outline of her withered legs beneath a blanket. "It's safer in the compounds," he says.

Margaret meets his gaze and holds it. "I'm dying in there."

"You're sick?"

"Sick at heart. I need air and space and freedom."

He understands her right away, but cannot believe she will be better off with him. "What about your parents?"

"Dead nine years. I have no family. Tessa is my only real friend." She keeps looking at him. "I can take care of myself. I can help take care of you, too. I know a lot about sickness and medicines. I can teach you."

"She is the one you are looking for," Tessa says suddenly.

She cannot walk, Hawk almost says, but keeps the words from slip–ping out, realizing just in time what son of judgment he will be passing.

"Tell her what it is you want to do," Tessa presses. "Let her tell you what she thinks."

He shakes his head. "No."

"If you don't, I will."

Hawk flushes at the rebuke. "All right." He speaks without looking at

Margaret. "I want to start a family. I don't have a family, and I want one."

"Tell her the rest."

She wants him to speak of his dream. She is determined about this, he sees. She is like that, Tessa.

His gaze shifts back to the older girl. "I want to gather together kids like myself, and then I want to take them away from here to a place where they will be safe." He feels like a small boy as he speaks. The words sound foolish.

He has to tell her something more. He takes a deep breath. "I saw that I would do this in a dream," he finishes.

Margaret doesn't laugh at him. Her expression does not change at all, but there is a flicker of recognition in her eyes. "You will be the father, and I will be the mother."

He hesitates. "You believe me?"

"Why shouldn't your dream be as real as anyone else's? Why shouldn't you do what you say you will? Tessa says you're special. I know what she means. I can tell by looking at you. By listening to you. I don't have dreams anymore. I don't even have hope. I want both again. If I come with you, I think I will find them."

He shakes his head. "It is dangerous in the ruins, outside the compound walls. You know what's out there, don't you?"

"I know."

"I can't be with you all the time. I might not be there to protect you when you need it."

"Or I you," she replies without blinking. "Life is a risk. Life is precious. But life has to be lived in a way that matters. Even now." She reaches out her hand. "Take me with you. Give me a chance. I don't ask for anything else. If you decide it isn't working out, you can bring me back or leave me. You are not bound to me. You owe me nothing."

He does not believe this for a moment, knowing that if he agrees to take her with him, he is accepting responsibility for her on some level. But the force of her plea moves him. The intensity of her eyes captivates him. He sees strength in her that he has not often found, and he believes it would be a mistake to underestimate it.

"She does not belong in the compounds," Tessa says quietly.

"Nor do you."

But in the end it is Margaret who goes with him and Tessa who stays behind.

IT WAS MIDMORNING when he departed with Cheney for the waterfront. The day was overcast, but not rainy, the air thick with the taste of chemicals and the smell of putrefaction. The wind was blowing off the water, the ocean waste spills making their presence known. It was like this on the coastlines when the wind was blowing the wrong way. The spills, which had taken place even before the start of the wars, had all but overpowered the natural cleansing ability of the oceans and left millions of square miles fouled. Their poisons were dissipating, but the detritus washed back up regularly through the estuaries and inland passages to clog the shorelines and remind the humans that the damage they had done was mostly irreparable. Some of those poisons were carried onshore by the wind, which was what Hawk could taste on the air. He closed his mouth, put a cloth over his face, and tried not to breathe.

A futile effort, he knew. The poisons were everywhere. In the air, the water and the land, and the things that lived in or on all of it. There was no escaping what had been done. Not for the humans alive now. Maybe for those who would be born a hundred years down the road, but Hawk would never know.

He had waited with Owl until the others awoke, eaten breakfast—a meal consisting of oatmeal, condensed milk, and sugar, all of it salvaged from packaging that time and the weather had not eroded–then called the others together to give them their marching orders. Panther was to take Sparrow,

Candle, and Fixit and try to retrieve the stash of bottled water that the latter had discovered with Chalk on the previous day. Bear was to take Chalk up on the roof and retrieve the water storage cylinders, which would have absorbed their purification tablets by now. River was to stay with Owl to help look after

Squirrel. He had given strict warning that no one was to go outside alone or to become separated from the others if out in a group. Until they found out what had done such terrible damage to the Lizard they had stumbled across yesterday, they would assume that everyone was at risk.

"So that changes things how?" Panther had sniffed dismissively as he headed out the door.

Hawk had waited until Panther's group was gone and Bear and Chalk had departed for the roof, then warned Owl again to keep the door barred until she was sure who was on the other side. Just to be certain, he had waited on the other side of the metal barrier until he heard the heavy latch click into place.

Now he stood outside in the street, waiting while Cheney relieved himself, thinking of the dead Lizard, still bothered by the mystery behind the damage it had incurred and determined to find out what had caused it. To do that, he needed to visit the Weatherman. The sky had turned darker and more threatening, as if rain were on the way. And it might be, but it was unlikely. Days like this one came and went all the time, gray and misty and sterile. Rain used to fall regularly in this city, but that wasn't true anymore. Nevertheless, he wore his rain jacket, the one Candle had found for him. In one pocket, he carried a flashlight; in the other, two of the viper–pricks. It was always best to be prepared.

He looked around for a moment, seeking out any signs of movement, found none, and headed downhill for the waterfront, Cheney leading. The bristle–haired dog padded along with his big head lowered and swinging from side to side, his strange walk familiar to the boy by now. It might seem as if Cheney weren't entirely sure where he was going, but the look was deceptive. Cheney always knew where he was going and what was in the way. He was just keeping watch. Cheney knew more than any of them about staying alive.

He had found the big dog when it was a burly puppy, foraging for food in the remains of a collapsed building in the midtown, half starved and unapproachable. The puppy growled at him boldly, warning him off. Intrigued,

Hawk knelt and held out a scrap of dried meat he was carrying, then waited for the dog to approach. It watched him for a very long time without doing anything, yellow eyes baleful and hard and suspicious. Hawk waited, meeting the other's dark gaze. Something passed between them, an understanding or recognition, perhaps—Hawk was never sure. Eventually, the puppy came a bit closer, but not close enough to be touched. Hawk waited until he was bored, then threw him the meat, turned, and started off. He had other things to do and no place in his life for a dog, in any case. He had only just brought Sparrow and Fixit into the underground to join Owl and himself, the start of his little family, and finding food for the four of them was a big enough problem without adding a dog to the mix.

But when he had looked back again, the puppy was following him, staying out of reach but keeping close enough so that it would not lose sight of him.

Three blocks later, it was still there. He tried to shoo it away, but it refused to leave. In the end, its persistence won him over. It had stayed with him all the way back to the entrance to the underground, but refused to come inside.

Finding it still there the following morning, he had fed it again. This had gone on for weeks until one day, without warning, it had decided to go down with him.

On reaching their home, it had looked around carefully, sniffed all the corners and studied all four kids, then picked out a corner, curled into a ball, and gone to sleep.

After that, it had stayed with them inside. But it had never become friendly with anyone but Hawk. It allowed the others to touch it, those bold enough to want to do so, but it kept apart except when Hawk was around. The boy couldn't explain Cheney's behavior, other than to attribute it to the fact that he was the one who had round the dog when it was a puppy and fed it, but he took a certain pride in the fact that Cheney, to the extent that he was anyone's, was clearly his.

He glanced over at the big dog now, watching the way he scanned the street, sniffed the air, kept his ears perked and his body loose and ready.

Cheney was no one to mess with. He was big to begin with, but when he felt threatened he became twice as big, his heavy coat bristling and his muzzle drawing back to reveal those huge teeth. It wasn't just for show. Today Hawk was carrying one of the prods for protection. But once, when he wasn't, less than a year after he had found Cheney, he had gotten trapped in an alley by a pair of

Croaks–zombie–like remnants of human beings who had ingested too much of the poisons and chemicals that had been used in the terrorist attacks and misguided reprisals that followed. Half dead already and shut out of the compounds, the

Croaks roamed the streets and buildings and waited to die. Croaks were extremely dangerous. Even the smallest scratch or bite from one would infect you; there was no cure. This pair was particularly nasty, the sum of their rage and frustration directed toward Hawk when they saw he couldn't escape them. But they were so intent on the boy that they hadn't noticed Cheney. It was a fatal mistake. The big dog had come up on them in a silent rush and both were dead almost before they realized what had happened, their throats torn out. Hawk had checked out Cheney afterward, fearing the worst. But there wasn't a mark on him.

After that, Hawk was convinced that Cheney was worth his substantial weight in daily rations. He quit worrying when he had to leave Owl and the smaller children alone. He quit thinking that he was the only one who could protect them.

The street sloped downhill in a smooth, undulating concrete ramp that was littered with car wrecks and debris from collapsed buildings. On one side lay a pile of bones that had been there for as long as he could remember. You didn't see bones often in the city; scavengers cleaned out most of them. But for some reason no one wanted any part of this batch. Cheney had never even gone over to sniff them.

Ahead, the waterfront opened up in a series of half–collapsed wooden piers and ruined buildings that left the concrete breakwater and pilings exposed. The waters of the sound spread away in a black, oily sheen clogged with refuse and algae, disappearing offshore in a massive fog bank that hung from clouds to earth like a thick, gauzy curtain. There was land beyond the fog, another piece of the city that stuck out south to north in a hilly peninsula dotted with houses and withered trees. But he seldom saw it these days, for the fog kept it wrapped tightly, a world far removed from his own.

He reached the waterfront and stood looking about for a moment, Cheney working his way in front of him, left to right, right to left nose to the ground, eyes glittering in the thin light. Left, the steel skeletons of the shipping cranes rose through the mist like dinosaurs frozen in time, dark and spectral. Right, the buildings of the city loomed over the dockside, their windows thousands of black, sightless eyes whose glass had long ago been broken out. The waterfront itself was littered with old car hulks and pieces of the buildings that had come down with the collapse of the piers and the concrete viaduct that had carried traffic through the city long ago. A dark figure moved in the shadows of a building front, one of the few still standing, there for just an instant, then quickly gone. Hawk waited in vain for another look. It was something more scared of him than he was of it.

He started down the waterfront toward the places where the Weatherman could usually be found. He kept to the open spaces, away from the dark openings and rubble where the bad things would sometimes lie in wait. Croaks, in particular, were unpredictable. Even with Cheney present, a Croak would attack if given a chance. Of course, anything would attack street kids because they were the easiest of prey.

He had walked perhaps a hundred yards north when he heard the Weatherman singing:

A tisket, a tasket,

The world is in a casket.

Broken stones and dead men's bones,

All gathered in a basket.

The Weatherman's voice was thin and high and singsong in a meandering sort of way that suggested his mind wasn't fully focused on what he was doing. Hawk suspected the old man's mind hadn't been fully focused on anything for years. It was a miracle that he had survived this long on the streets, alone and unprotected. Almost no adults lived outside the compounds; only kids and Freaks lived on the streets.

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.

Sweet and kind and slow of mind, it really didn't know.

That everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went. Everywhere that Mary went, bad things were sure to go.

"Which accounted for its untimely demise the day Mary decided to visit the waterfront and ran into the big, bad wolf. Hello, Brother Hawk."

The Weatherman emerged from the shadow of a partially collapsed building along the dockside, his ravaged face like something out of a nightmare–the skin pocked and mottled, the strange blue eyes as mad as those of any Croak, and the wispy white hair sticking out in all directions. He wore his trademark black cloak and red scarf, both so tattered it was a wonder the threads still managed to hold together.

"Are you the wolf that Mary should have stayed away from?" Hawk asked him.

You never knew for sure what the Weatherman was singing about.

The old man hobbled over to him, giving Cheney a passing glance but showing no fear. Cheney, for his part, kept his yellow eyes fixed on the scarecrow but did not growl. "Hadn't given it much thought. Do you think I might be?"

Hawk shrugged. "I think you're the Weatherman. But you could be a wolf, too."

The old man came right up to him. He reeked of the streets, of the waterfront smells, of the poisons and the waste. His eyes were milky and his fingers bony as he lifted them to his scraggly beard and tugged on it contemplatively.

"I could be many things, Brother Hawk. But I am only one. I am the

Weatherman, and my forecast for you this day is of dark clouds and cold nights and of a heavy wind that threatens to blow you away." The mad eyes fixed on him.

"My prediction calls for a Ghost watch. Keep a weather eye out, boy, until I have a chance to provide an update."

Hawk nodded, not understanding at all. He never understood the

Weatherman's predictions, but out of politeness he pretended he did. "We came across a Lizard yesterday. It was all torn up. You know something out there that could do that, Weatherman?"

The ragged head cocked and the gaunt face tightened. "Something searching for food or establishing its territory. Something like

The times we live in–who would have believed they would come to pass? Do you know, Brother Hawk, that this city was beautiful once? It was green and sparkling, and the waters of this bay were so blue and the sky so clear you could see forever. Everything was lovely and new and filled with color and it could hurt your eyes just to look at it."

He smiled, the gaps in his teeth showing black and empty. "I was a boy like you, long ago. I lived over there, beyond the mist." He pointed west, glanced that way as if he might see something of his past, and then looked back at Hawk, his face stricken. "What we've done! What we've allowed! We deserve what's happened to us. We deserve it all."

"Speak for yourself," Hawk said. "I didn't do anything to deserve this.

The Ghosts didn't do anything. Grown–ups did. Tell me what you know about the Lizard."

But the Weatherman wasn't ready to move on yet. "Not all grown–ups are bad, Hawk. Never were. Not all are responsible for what happened to the world.

Some few were enough to cause the destruction–some few with power and means. It was different then. Do you know that people could speak with each other and see each other at the same time through little black boxes, even though they were thousands of miles away? Did you know they could project images of themselves in the same way?"

Hawk shook his head. "Owl reads to us about that stuff, but what's the difference? That's all gone now, all in the past. What about the Lizard?"

The old man stared at him as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing, then nodded slowly. "I guess it really is gone. I guess so." He shook his shaggy head. "Hard to believe. Sometimes I think about it as if it never really happened. An old man's dreams."

He sighed. "There are things coming out of the earth, Brother Hawk. Things big and dark, birthed by the poisons and the chemicals and the madness, I expect." One eyebrow cocked. "Haven't seen them myself, but I've seen evidence of their passing. Like your Lizard, a whole nest of Croaks, down by the cranes at the south end, torn to pieces. They fought back, but they were no match for whatever got them. That sound similar?"

Hawk nodded. Most creatures simply avoided Croaks, especially if there were more than one. What would attack several and not be afraid?

The Weatherman bent close. "It's not safe in the city anymore. Not on the streets and not in the buildings. Not even in the compounds. There's a change in the weather coming, Brother Hawk, and it threatens to sweep us away."

"It won't sweep me away," Hawk snapped, angry at having to listen to yet another bleak prediction. His lean face tightened and his patience slipped. "You make these forecasts, Weatherman, like they don't have anything to do with you.

But you're on the streets, too. What are you going to do if one of them comes true?"

The other's smile was gap–toothed and crooked. "Take shelter. Ride it out.

Wait for the storm to pass." He shrugged. "Of course, I'm an old man, and old men have less to lose than boys like you."

"Everyone has a life to lose, and once it's gone, that's it." Hawk didn't like what he was hearing. The Weatherman never talked about dying. "What kind of weather are you talking about, anyway?"

The old man didn't seem to hear. "Sometimes it's best to get far away from a storm, not try to ride it out."

Hawk lost the last of his patience. "I'll be leaving here one day soon, don't you worry! Maybe I'll leave now! I'll just pack up and go! I'll take the Ghosts out of this garbage pit and find a new home, a better home!"

The words came out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He didn't really mean to speak them, but the old man was always predicting something dire, always forecasting something awful, and this time it just got to him. What was the point, after all? How much worse could things get than they were now?

The Weatherman didn't seem to notice his distress. He turned away and looked off into the mist that hung over the bay. "Well, Brother Hawk, there's better places to be than here, I guess. But I don't know where they are. Most of the cities are ruined. Most of the country is dust and poison. The compounds are the way of things now, and they won't last. Can't, with what's coming. The worst hasn't reached us yet, but it will. It will."

Hawk shifted his feet from side to side, suddenly anxious to be gone. He glanced around the waterfront, then back at the old man.

"You better watch out for yourself," he said. "Whatever's out there in the city isn't anything you want to run across."

The Weatherman didn't reply. He didn't even look around.

"I'll come back down in a few days to see if you've seen anything else."

No response. Then suddenly, the old man said, "If you leave, Brother Hawk, will you take me with you?"

The question was so unexpected that for a moment Hawk was unable to reply.

He didn't really want to take the old man with him, but he knew he couldn't leave him behind.

Taking a deep breath, he said, "All right. If you still want to come when it's time." He paused. "I have to go now."

He walked back down the dockside, unhappy with himself for reasons he couldn't define, irritated that he had come at all. Nothing much had been accomplished by doing do. He glanced over at Cheney, who was fanned out to his right, big head lowered and swinging from side to side.

From behind him, the thin, high voice tracked his steps.

Happy Humanity sat on a wall. Happy Humanity had a great fall. All of our efforts to put him to mend Couldn't make Happy be human again.

Without looking back, Hawk lifted his arm in a wave of farewell and walked on through the mist and the gray.