Eternity Road

17

Avila was lucky: The door shielded her from the worst of the blast. She came away with a few burns, bruised ribs and shoulder, and a twisted knee. Chaka found her propped against the wall, eyes glazed, beside Shannon. The big forester lay flat, boneless, crumpled. She tried to help him, to clear away the blood. But it was no use.

“I don’t know,” Avila said, replying to frantic questions. “It just exploded.” There was a strong odor of burnt cork in the passageway.

Quait checked for pulse and found none.

Chaka knelt beside Avila, lifting her gently away from Shannon, gathering her into her own arms. “You okay?” she asked.

“Okay—”

“It must have been a bomb.” Chaka’s voice was shaky. “Why? What’s the point?”

“Had to be,” said Quait.

Flojian was slower than the others. He arrived, struggling for breath, and his eyes went wide.

The door lay in the corridor, the frame half blown away Quait glanced into the room but took care not to get too close to the entrance. “Don’t touch anything. There might be more surprises in there.”

Chaka, trying to hold back tears, was asking Avila what hurt.

Avila couldn’t take her eyes from Shannon. “My fault,” she said.

“It’s not anybody’s fault,” said Quait.

She got to her knees, took Shannon’s right hand in both of hers, and bowed her head.

Chaka’s face was creased with tears and blood. “You think Mike did this deliberately?”

“Hard to see how else it could have happened,” said Quait.

Flojian nodded.

“I can’t believe it.” Chaka’s face was pale and her eyes were full of pain. “Why? Mike has no reason to attack any of us.”

“Maybe,” said Quait, “we should start by getting away from the first-name routine. That thing is not some friendly lost traveler or oversized dog. It’s an it. Maybe we were right the first time and it is a demon. And maybe it just wants to kill anyone who comes in here.” They looked at one another, suddenly aware that everything they were saying was probably being overheard.

“There are such things,” said Flojian. “There are all kinds of stories.”

Quait looked at the ceiling, which was mottled and water-stained and, near the blast area, scorched. “You didn’t even care, did you?” he asked it. “You had no way of knowing who would open the door.”

Chaka had a vision of being hounded through the abandoned city by an invisible thing. “We ought to get out of here,” she said. “Now. Get as far away as we can.”

“We’re probably safe on the platform,” said Quait. “Apparently it can’t just come after us, or it would have done so.”

Avila folded Shannon’s hand over his heart. She murmured 3 prayer and made the sign of the Traveler’s staff.

Quait watched her, his face rigid. “I’d like to find a way to give the son of a bitch what it asked for. Kill it dead.” A void lay behind his eyes. “I don’t imagine we can assume there’s any truth to the black disk story?”

“I doubt it,” said Chaka. “He wouldn’t give us anything we could use against him.”

“Listen,” Avila said, getting to her feet. “Let’s not waste our time talking about demons. Okay? Mike is a piece of the building, the same way the walls are, the same way the trains are. The real question here is whether this was deliberate.”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should ask him.”

“I don’t like it,” said Flojian. “Whatever you want to call it, we can’t touch this thing. If it has more surprises, how do we defend ourselves?”

“We can’t,” said Avila. “But I don’t think we need to.”

“Okay,” persisted Flojian. “If we admit we can’t act against it, why don’t we just get out while we can? Leave it alone?”

“If he’s innocent,” Avila said slowly, “we’d be abandoning him. I can’t do that. Especially now. We’ve paid for his release with our blood.”

Quait stared at her a long time. “Then let’s get to it,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

But there was still an element of doubt in Avila’s mind. Consequently, she insisted that they move the animals and their gear across the channel into the lobby of the gray tower. “Just as well,” said Flojian. “Water’s a barrier against evil.”

They all insisted, against her better judgment, in going with her to confront the entity that Quait and Flojian now referred to routinely as the house demon.

“All right,” she agreed, caving in because she had no real choice. “But I do the talking. Okay?”

They went back into Union Station, walked four abreast through the concourse with a mien that reminded Quait of drill fields, and made a turn into the corridor that housed the stairway.

Flojian reminded them (if anyone needed reminding) that the house demon could probably see them, and undoubtedly had heard everything they’d said. They climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked into Mike’s room. Despite a bright sun, they stood in dingy gray light.

“Mike?” Avila said. “Talk to me.”

A sudden noise, a fluttering, at the window. A pigeon.

“Mike? I know you’re here.”

“I’m always here. “The voice sounded flat and cold.

“Jon’s dead.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“What happened?”

“Accumulated gas, I assume. Did you have an open flame?”

“An oil lamp.”

“I never thought of it. I thought the only danger would come from electricity. And that seemed minimal.”

“You didn’t say anything about risks.”

“There are always risks, Avila. But I am sorry. I couldn ‘t warn him. I get no visuals from there anymore. I never knew there was a problem until I heard the blast.”

“Well,” said Flojian, breaking the agreement. “We’re sorry, too. But there’s not much help for it, is there?”

“Can you see me now?” asked Avila.

“No.”

“But there are places in the building where you have vision?”

“A few. There’s one near the donutshop in the concourse. I see you every time you walk past it.”

What an odd creature this was. “Why have we not been meeting in one of these other places?”

“None has working speakers.”

“Avila,” whispered Quait. His eyes said get to the point.

She nodded. “Mike, do you want us to try again?”

Boards creeked underfoot. Quait said, “But we’d like not to get blown up.”

“No. Of course not. But you’re into Operations. Just be careful going through doors.” He paused. “And, yes. Please. I want you to do this if you ‘re still willing.”

“You’re sure,” said Quait. “You seem kind of tentative.”

“I’ve never walked these corridors, Quait,” Mike said. “I’m programed to coordinate train schedules and maintain personnel flies. Not to assist a breakin. I’m doing the best I can.”

“So far,” said Flojian, “your best hasn’t been very good.”

“I know. Listen, I have a gift for you. Some small compensation for what you’ve lost. What sort of weapons do you have?”

“Rifles and pistols. Why?”

” What kind of ammunition do they use?”

“Bullets.” Quait frowned. “What other kind is there?”

“Okay. Look for a door marked ‘SECURITY.’ There’ll be an outer office and an inner locked room. The inner room has hand weapons,

designed for crowd control. They are palm-sized, wedge-shaped. Most of them are still in the original containers, and will have to be charged. I’ll explain how to do that.”

“Why do I want them?” asked Quait.

“You may find them more effective than what you have. With these, you don’t have to hit somebody with a missile. Just point it in their general direction and squeeze.” He repeated that they would need to be charged, and described how to do it. “Okay,” Avila said. “We’ll take a look.”

“And be careful about closed doors. Right? No open flames. And you might not even be able to breathe in a room that’s been sealed. So let it air out.”

“Too bad Jon didn’t have the benefit of the advice,” said Flojian.

Avila threw an angry glance at him. “Okay, Mike,” she said. “Anything else?”

“When you get away from the City, be careful. There’ve been lights on the lake. I don’t know what they are. And if your gods do exist they’ll count this night in your favor.”

The air in the computer room was stale, but safe. A cracked pipe and crumbled insulation had ensured that. But Avila had no way of knowing, and so she and Flojian had waited a half-hour before using a board to push a lamp into harm’s way. When it did not explode, she went cautiously inside. Flojian followed with the axe

There were several gray boxes in the room. She found the one marked MICA/SR. It was made of pseudo-metal and, like the table on which it stood, looked almost new. There was some discoloration, but that was all. The box was connected by cable to several other devices of similar, but not identical, configuration.

It was making a noise. A low but deep-throated hum.

The push button marked POWER was on the right side. On the left, the letters IBM were prominently displayed, centered among other buttons and inserts, marked TURBO, CAPA, and INT. Avila put her hand, palm flat, on top of the casing. It had a rough texture, and she could feel a slight vibration.

She thought about making some final statement to the

i entity. A farewell. A warning. A last chance to change its

mind. But she suspected it was waiting in an agony of anticipation (as she believed she would have been), and any delay now would be cruel. So she pushed the button and the vibration stopped.

There was a seam around the front of the case. She inserted the axe blade and used it to try to force the box open. But she wasn’t doing well, and Flojian reached out for the instrument. ‘Before you take off your arm,” he said. He produced a chisel and needed only a moment to remove the lid. Beneath lay the white metal casing. She inserted her fingers beneath its lip and pulled. It clicked and the top lifted, exposing the black disk. She looked at it in the lamplight and then lifted it out. “Done,” said Flojian. She wrapped it in a piece of cloth. A few minutes later they broke into the security locker and found two dozen of the crowd-control weapons Mike had desscribed. They were small enough to fit in the palm of the hand, and they looked a little like black seashells. “Not going to scare anyone,” Flojian said. She took six. On the theory that you can’t have too much Firepower, she’d have taken them all, but they required fifteen minutes each in the unit that Mark had called a charger. When she was finished, she gave half to Flojian and pocketed the rest. Then she went back to the second floor room and called Mike’s name. There was no answer.

They stayed that night in the gray tower. Next day, with the horses in tow, they climbed to the fourth floor, picked up Shay’s signs, and followed them onto a kind of skyway, navigating rooftops, traveling long ill-lit corridors, and crossing overpasses. By sundown they’d descended again to ground level and reached open water. Here, in the shade of a stand of elm trees, they gave Jon Shannon to the flames. And for the first time, they felt lost in the immensity of the Wilderness.

When the ceremony had concluded, Avila weighted the piece of cloth that held the black disk, waded far out into the water, and flung it away.

She looked out at the blue horizon.”Goodbye, Mike,” she said. “Ekra convey you in peace to your eternal home.”