“Good,” said the shopkeeper. “Your vessel is the only way we have of getting to the node in time. I have to confess that we were hopeful, and your answer has been anticipated. There is a courier on her way here from the underworld. She is bringing a new crystal with her.”
“How long until she gets here?”
“One, maybe two days. Until then, I suggest that you take some time to relax. There is nothing more to be done until she gets here.”
So they finished their evening with another bottle even older than the first, after which they all slept long and soundly, until the sound of the traffic on the freeway woke them late next morning.
Geoca and Bark went back to the cellar where Pig was waiting. They took him some fruit and vegetables, and a bottle of water, which they emptied into a bowl for him. They told him how the crystal had been placed, and then how they had agreed to go to the Antarctic.
Pig nodded solemnly as they spoke. “You’ll have to get some warm clothes, then,” he said after a while. “I don’t suppose I’ll have time to grow a winter coat.”
The Senator, Sahrin and Reina were all curious about the city and they went exploring, spending the day in the crowded downtown streets. Mall culture confused the hell out of them.
* * *
The next day, the courier arrived. She knocked softly on the door of the shop, and when it was opened she darted in from the street like a mouse trying to get away from a cat without attracting its attention. She wore a long cloak that covered her from head to foot. She kept her gaze towards the ground, refusing to look up.
The shopkeeper locked the front door and they crowded into the small living room, where she produced a bag from under her cloak.
“Please take good care of this,” she said, her voice low. “Not only is it desperately needed far to the South, but it also has lives to be weighed against it. Three of us set out, and I alone have survived.” She sank back in her chair, for the first time raising her head enough for them to see her.
She was strange, unsettling and beautiful, all at the same time. Her face was covered with small intersecting planes that glittered like tiny mirrors. It was impossible to tell whether it was a mask, or whether it was what she was made of. Whatever it was, it couldn’t hide the underlying softness of her face. She looked like someone’s idea of a robot, except that the segments moved easily, flowing like water over her as she spoke. Reflected light sparkled from her like a constellation of stars.
“What happened to your companions?” asked the shopkeeper, who was busy pouring drinks and had his back to her. “Where they taken by surface people?”
“No, we had no trouble from them. We’re well used to keeping out of their way. My friends were buried by a rock fall not far from the surface.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve never seen one like you before,” broke in Geoca.
The shopkeeper turned to look. “Oh, my! Neither have I. Where are you from, my dear?”
The new arrival stopped trying to hide and pulled the hood back from her face. The mirrors that were her skin reflected the room and its inhabitants in a sparkling blue mosaic of tiny images.
“I am what you are,” – she looked around the room – “but my type have kept to ourselves, even to the point of staying apart from the rest of the mutants. We have our own catacombs underground, and we have lived there undisturbed by any, mutant or surface people, since we all went underground after the wars against the Nefilim.”
Geoboy and Geogirl were mesmerized. They had climbed out of their hole in Geoca’s torso and were perched, one on each of his knees like a pair of lap dogs, staring wide-eyed at the stranger. Geoca noticed their attentiveness. Silently, he asked them what they were thinking.
‘She’s… nothing,’
the male thought back to him.
‘There is nothing inside her… no thoughts…’
‘
Or nothing that we can find,’
added the female.
‘It is as though she is empty…’
She was unsure of what to say, and her thoughts trailed off.
‘But she’s so beautiful…’
The blue woman was still talking. “We know, as you do, the danger posed by the surface people and the Nefilim. Alone or together, the two races are capable of inflicting great suffering. We remember the Nefilim well. That’s why we’ve decided to help you. I’ll come with you, if I can.”
“Then you should depart as soon as possible,” said the shopkeeper to them all.
* * *
They left the antique shop and started towards the basement where Pig was waiting. They hadn’t even reached the subway when the photon belt arrived.
“What..?” They looked around, and then up. Great colored bands of light were sweeping across the sky, as though they were inside a gigantic kaleidoscope. The colors of the buildings and people around them shifted and changed, racing to match those in the sky.
“It’s happening, then,” said the Senator, drawing his coat around him, even though he wasn’t cold.
“It’s real,” said someone else. “Did you ever doubt it?”
“Of course I did. Didn’t you?”
Before they could do or say anything else, the great darkness fell on them, dropping out of the sky like a stone. They were surrounded by total, impenetrable blackness. Bark held his hand up in front of his face. He couldn’t see it. He could see nothing.
“Everyone come to me. Hold on to each other, and don’t let go.” He felt someone take hold of his arm.
“What the hell are we going to do now?” Like all of them, Reina hadn’t given any thought to the arrival of the belt. It had seemed too weird.
“Three days of darkness.” someone groaned. “And we’re stuck in it.”
“Where the fuck are we?” Sahrin demanded, sounding a lot braver than she felt.
“Well, we’ve no way of telling that,” said Bark, “but we do need to find shelter. With no sun for three days, it’s going to get cold.”
“And there are millions of people in this city,” said Reina. “They’re going to be confused and desperate. And dangerous.”
The silence that had fallen around them with the darkness was giving way to the sounds of panic and confusion. People were calling out each other’s names, or calling for help from anyone. Some were just screaming.
Cars had crashed and people were injured. A truck had caught fire. In the faint pool of impossibly weak light cast by the flames, they could see bodies lying on the ground. Someone was hurt and trying to get up, but they couldn’t. Someone ran out of the darkness, and knelt down to help. From behind them somewhere came the sound of gunshots.
“I’d say keeping our heads is the first thing. This is going to be three days of ugliness. We’d better find somewhere safe.”
“Can we get to the basement from here?” someone asked.
“Too far,” said Geoca. “We’d get lost, nothing is surer.”
“We’re lost
now
,” said the Senator. He wasn’t taking the situation well. He didn’t like the dark.
Someone ran up to them, careering blindly through the darkness. They collided with Bark, almost knocking him to the ground. “GET OUT OF MY FUCKIN’ WAY!” a bodiless voice yelled, stumbling into a couple more of the group before running off. There was a thudding sound as whoever it was hit something hard and immobile that refused to fall over. A few seconds of stunned silence were followed by the sound of carefully measured footsteps and cursing moving away from them.
The group clung to each other, but didn’t move.
“Don’t be afraid,” said an unfamiliar voice.
“Who..? Oh… it’s you…”
It was the blue woman.
“Yes. Can you see now?” They could. Her hands were glowing, and where she held them out, they could see the pavement, bathed in the pale light that emanated from her skin. There was just enough for them to see what they were walking on.
They edged slowly along the road, staying close to the buildings, until they found a doorway leading off the street. They went in. It was some sort of reception area.
“Thanks,” Bark said.
“That was a nice trick,” added Reina. “What’s your name?”
“A name… what would I do with one of those?” she laughed. “Names only get you in trouble. I prefer to travel light.”
“I think we might have sufficient idle time over the next few days to deal with propositions as arcane as that.” The Senator was looking through some cupboards.
“But practicalities first, I think,” said Bark. “Let’s see what’s here.”
It was a doctor’s office, or some sort of medical clinic.
“Very useful,” said Reina, not meaning it. “A supermarket or a deli would have been closer to the mark.”
“If they have something to do with food, you’re quite right,” answered Bark.
“They do. And I am.”
The blue woman sat down on the floor and leaned against a wall. “You need more light.” She lowered her head and slid into some sort of trance. “I can keep this up as long as I don’t have to move,” she said. Her skin lit up as though a switch had been thrown somewhere. She shrugged out of her cape, letting it fall away to expose her bare torso. The room filled with light.
“What do we do now?” someone asked.
“We wait, answered Bark, “for the darkness to pass.”
“When it does, there’ll be chaos. If what Obirin told me was correct, none of their energy systems will work,” said Sahrin. “There will be no electricity. Everything will fall apart.”
Geoca sat down next to the blue woman. “There may be no electricity, but there will be the Nefilim grid, don’t forget. Of course, it won’t be the general population who get to benefit from it, you can be sure of that. There will be a new order. Things will never be the same again. That’s why the Stream is so important.” Geoca’s helpers scurried onto his crossed legs, where they crouched, once again engrossed in the sight of the shining woman.
They slept. When they woke, it was time to think of food. All they had found in the doctor’s rooms was a jar of jellybeans.
“A search party!” proclaimed Bark. “Consisting of myself, firstly because it’s my idea and secondly because I don’t feel like sitting around here doing nothing, and one volunteer. There’s no need to expose all of us to what’s going on out there.”
“You’re forgetting something,” said Reina, who had just woken up. She had no intention of getting out from under the blankets that she had taken from the doctor’s linen supply, which for some unknown but happy reason had been well stocked. It was cold, as someone, she forgot who, had said it would be, and as soon as this little talkie bit was over, she was going to submerge again and go back to sleep. “It’s pitch black out there. You can’t see zip.”
The shining woman lifted her head. “Come here,” she said to Bark. “Kneel down beside me and close your eyes.”
He did as she said. She placed her fingertips on his eyelids. She held them there for a few seconds and then took her hand away.
“You can open your eyes now.”
Bark opened his eyes. Everything was illuminated by an internal light. It was beautiful.
Everything
was beautiful. “Is this how you see?” he asked, looking around incredulously. It was as though everything was made of crystal. It was cleaner, more pristine than anything he could have imagined. The only time he had ever seen anything similar was long ago on a beach on some nameless planet when a stranger had given him some even stranger drugs.
“You should be able to find your way around now,” said the shining woman, without answering his question. “Who else is going to go with you?”
“Reina,” replied Bark, looking at the light that glowed inside each of the people in the room, pulsing a rainbow of colors and frequencies that was different for each of them. Except the blue woman. When he looked at her, all he saw was a dark black shape, as though he was looking into the emptiness of deep, starless space.
“No way,” said Reina. “And thanks for asking. I’m quite comfortable here.”
“Yes, but, my dear, while I appreciate – indeed, share – your predilection for your creature comforts, you must agree that you are the only one among us who has any real knowledge of the world out there. Even though it’s not your city, it’s still your culture. And further, I think it reasonable to propose that the communal good should take priority over your desire for comfort.”
Even before he had finished, Reina had said “shit,” rolled her eyes, and started pulling her boots on. “I suppose, then,” she grumbled. “I want to get a warmer jacket anyway.”
She sat down in front of the blue woman and was soon seeing things the way Bark saw them.
* * *
An emerald green sky covered New York like a giant sheet of infinitely thick glass. Beneath it, the city glittered in the diamond light of the vision that the blue woman had given them. Reina felt as though she was on an alien planet. Bark had the same feeling, but in his case that was to be expected, of course.
The streets were virtually empty. There were bodies lying around, and a couple of stragglers wandering around in what was to them total darkness. Bark and Reina helped them indoors and got them set up with food and something to keep them warm. Mostly, though, people had gone underground, finding their way into buildings, or at least some sort of shelter.
In the distance, a row of office buildings was on fire. The sight of it stopped them in their tracks, even though they were a city block away. The flames were black, and were surrounded by a nimbus of black fog. Above them, radiant blue clouds of smoke billowed from the burning buildings, trailing upwards towards the sky and disappearing into the green surface like the tentacles of a jellyfish. More trails of smoke in the distance connected the ground and the sky like lightning strikes.
A crowd of people had gathered around the flames. In the darkness that the photon belt had brought, fire was the only source of heat or light. A few people were carrying torches made of pieces of wood, but the darkness clung like treacle, and the flames weren’t casting anything like the light that they normally would have. A fight had broken out in the crowd.
They stood watching for a couple of minutes, and then decided that they should keep moving. They had to find food and get back, and it was cold, and getting colder.