“You’re right, Nathan,”Piers said grimly. “The religious allusions put them off. That was certainly the feedback I got.” They were standing in a circle, Piers, Nathan, Thandie and Lily, in the anteroom behind the lecture theater, cradling coffees. Far from being LaRei-class, to Lily the coffee tasted sour, over-strong.
“All I did was assign a few names. What’s wrong with that?” Thandie spoke rapidly, her gestures jerky; she gulped at her hot coffee. She was still on an adrenaline high from her presentation.
“You’re missing the point,” Nathan said, exasperated. “Shit, Thandie. I personally know people who believe that nuclear war is predicted in the Book of Revelation. You were too damn clever. You should have stuck to the numbers. You pressed the wrong buttons. And you gave the delegates a reason not to listen to you that had nothing to do with your precious science.”
Piers nodded. “Anyhow, it’s done. At least the argument got aired. So what now?”
Nathan ticked the points off on his fingers. “One. We keep arguing this process through. We work on the IPCC delegates, we put pressure on the reviewers, we try to talk directly to governments. And we keep gathering data. But, two. We don’t wait for the wheels to grind. We prepare options.”
“Options for what?” Lily asked.
“The worst case,” Nathan said. “Whatever that is.”
Gary came running up, breathless. “Look at this.” His laptop showed a radar image, a knotted-up swirl of colored light creeping toward an outline map of New York City.“Aaron’s not behaving as modeled. They think a new center has formed, invalidating the old forecasts. And there’s minimal shear, meaning the high-level winds which can lop the top off a developing hurricane aren’t helping in this case.”
Thandie whistled. With her finger she traced a doughnut of orange red, right at the center of the storm swirl. “Is that the eye wall? Must be fifty kilometers across. That’s a beauty.”
“It’s a beauty that’s headed this way,” Lily said practically.
“The chopper,” Nathan said. “Now!”
They ran for the elevator to the roof.
The weather had changed utterly. They emerged into a battering wind, and rain that lashed horizontally, rain tasting of salt, accompanied by sheets of white spray. Lily was soaked in a second, her clothes, her face, her hair, and deafened from the wind’s howl.
The sky above was a sculpture of swirling creamy cloud, a vast rotating system, a special effect. Lily saw lightning crackle between the layers, illuminating the cloud from within, pink and purple. It was impossible to believe that all this was just air and water vapor and heat.
The chopper sat on its pad, bolted to the roof by clamps, its rotors turning. They had to get to the bird by edging their way around the shelter of a wall, working hand over hand along a metal rail; otherwise there was a danger of being blown clean off the roof. The pilot was the same bluff woman who had transported Lily and the others to Central Park earlier. She helped them climb aboard, hauling them in one by one with unreasonable strength. She yelled into Lammockson’s face, “Thirty more seconds and I’d have gone without you.”
“Just get us out of here.”
The doors slammed shut and the chopper’s engine roared. They scrambled for seats and belts. The pilot released the runner clamps, and the bird soared up. Looking down, Lily glimpsed the slim, graceful lines of the Freedom Tower rising from the turbulent water that covered the Memorial.
Then the chopper surged west, heading over the Hudson and hurrying inland. It was buffeted; even Lily, used to tough chopper sorties, felt exposed.
Gary snapped open his laptop.“Damn it. They’re saying Aaron’s now a category four. Borderline five.”
Piers asked, “What kind of damage will that do?”
Gary tapped at his keyboard. “New York hasn’t been hit by a hurricane since… 1938. Preparedness, nil. And the city’s already flayed open by the floods. The colder waters at this latitude should weaken the storm-you know hurricanes are fueled by ocean surface heat. But on the other hand you have the peculiar topography of Manhattan. All those concrete canyons. The winds will be amplified.”
“Shit,” Lammockson said.“Well, that’s it for NewYork. Thank Christ I got my assets out in time.”
“The rich believe they have choices,” Piers said grimly. “While the poor must accept their fate.”
“I don’t notice you turning down a ride,” Lammockson snarled at him.
“The eye wall’s about to hit,” Gary said.
They all twisted in their seats to look back.
The hurricane was a bowl of churning air, like a vast artifact suspended over the heart of the city. Lily could see a storm surge already roaring through the streets of the Financial District, gray walls of foam and spray and sheer muscular water pushing between the tall buildings. Debris rode the waves, massive to be visible from here, cars, uprooted trees perhaps. And, incredibly, she saw the prow of an ocean-going ship being forced down one of the avenues.
Then the storm itself broke over the town. Lesser buildings simply exploded, burst open from within by the primal force of the wind. The towering skyscrapers survived, huddled together against the lashing rain, reminding Lily of images of emperor penguins. But there was a kind of sparkling around them, like a mist of raindrops before the buildings’ sheer walls. That was glass, Gary said, the glass of a million windows sucked out of their frames and shattered, a glass storm that must be rending any living flesh exposed to it.
The chopper dipped its nose and fled toward the sanctuary of the higher ground.