I chuckled. Cerulean used to get very upset about the smallest things. It wasn't funny really, more a part of his condition, but still I had to laugh, and that helped the twinge loosen a little.
"It's just bits," I typed.
"Shit bits," he returned, "shitty little bits."
"Shiny bits," I counseled. "Sweet and tasty."
He gave me a look that would be exasperated, if giant blue parrots had that much expressive range, but instead looked mostly cute. I made my avatar smile. It was important we both stayed within our normal emotional range, even if we weren't feeling it, because, well, we'd both die if we didn't.
"This damn place," Cerulean huffed, and started waddling away down the shelves. "Damn mushrooms. Are you coming?"
I followed.
Together we walked; him a parrot, me a hipster in cargo shorts. We had our diviners synced. We used to do this for hours, most nights, ever since Cerulean found my world. After a few weeks of glimpsing him hovering constantly just at the edge of my vision, we talked, haltingly at first, but in time the story came out, and we realized we had more in common than just about anyone in the world: we'd both died multiple times.
"So why are you online in the middle of the day?" he'd asked.
"I just got a date."
He stopped his parrot in the act of reaching for some generic Ken doll-alikes. "What?"
I explained.
For Cerulean this was great and juicy gossip, because Cerulean spent all his days in the Darkness. His coma had been much worse than mine. Unconsciousness hit at the edge of the thirty-foot dive platform and he fell, breaking his back on the pool's edge and half-drowning in the water before anyone could get him out.
It left him much worse off than me, essentially a paraplegic, and far more sensitive to stimulation.
The little pirate stomped excitedly around his avatar's feathery shoulder as I finished explaining.
"That is crazy," he typed. "You became mayor, and got a date?"
"A lot happened today."
"Are you coping OK?"
"No," I said. "I'm in the middle of a twinge. I just called her."
"Just called her!"
The parrot made a shocked face, like this was the most unbelievable thing of all. I'd be lying if it didn't make me feel good.
"Yeah."
"Damn. You're a brave man Amo; I couldn't do that. But maybe it's just what you need."
I laughed. "If I don't die."
"If you don't die," he agreed solemnly. "So let's work. We have a few hours yet to walk it off."
I made my avatar nod, and we started walking again, side by side. Occasionally our synchronized diviners clicked left or right and we followed to collect. It helped. Hours passed in that way, and so the time of the date crept closer. We collected everything through that soothing dark, avoiding Bobby or Hank as they drifted by, not speaking, not doing anything but follow the rhythmic clicking of the diviners, controlling our fates.
After three hours had passed, I noticed Cerulean had logged off already. He'd left a note in the system for me to read. I guess he thought I might try and back out of the date, try and hide in the Darkness with him instead of facing the music in the real world.
You can do this, Amo. Go get her, tiger.
* * *
I stir awake from the reverie, and stand. My body aches like I just got out of the gym. I check my watch; nearly five. It'll be dark soon, shit. Lara might arrive at any minute. It doesn't help to think that she might already be dead. No. I have to imagine she's coming. I have to get this place ready for her to arrive.
First things first.
At the coffee bar I lift the hinged counter section and go to the door in back. Inside lies a pokey little office; desk, chair, a few neat gray filing cabinets and a thumbtack-studded corkboard with all kinds of notifications. It's darker here, lit by only afternoon sunlight from the front windows. I hold up my phone in flashlight mode.
Lara
She's on the work-rota Tuesday through Saturday. Good to know.
I rustle in the desk and come up with a roll of duct tape and a few marker chalk pens. An idea pings into my head like a twitter notification, and I bring it up.
Approved.
I climb on top of the coffee bar and find the release clip to pull the menu blackboards out. There are four of them in total, a lovely coincidence. Each is about a meter square, and I lay them out on the floor.
A floater rolls up to the broken window like it's a drive-thru booth, a red-haired lady with crusted blood down her throat.
"We're closed," I tell her. She doesn't listen. I drag one of the big sofas over and upend it in front of her face. It covers the window almost completely.
Good enough for me. She thumps against it but doesn't seem smart enough to climb, so I tune her out.
The blackboards are covered in stuff about coffee; gentle boasts, bits of art, prices, wit. I spray the boards down and wipe them clear, leaving a pure black canvas behind. This is my wheelhouse, for sure; I am an artist, after all.
I write my message one huge letter to a board.
L A R A
Four boards for four letters, like panels in a comic. I paint them in bright yellow, which really pops against the black. I add a message on the bottom of the first board.
I'm inside, Lara. It's Amo. If I'm not here when you come, please wait. I'll be back.
Finally I draw a quick cartoon zombie at the edge of the last panel, all pale-faced and white-eyed, for fun. It's standing at a door and staring at the doorbell with its jaw hanging down, to take the edge off the reality. It's not funny, but it looks, what, poignant? Irreverent?
I put the boards up across the windows. They lean nicely against the wall above the windows, and I fasten them with duct tape. They'll have the added bonus of concealing me from the flow of infected people outside. The lady outside tracks me, her head thumping witlessly against whichever window I'm standing behind.
When all the boards are up it's quite dark inside Sir Clowdesley. I cover the one remaining window with bits of paper, and the lady stops thumping so much. That's good information to have.
I stand and look into the darkness of my favorite coffee shop. I bring up my phone and double-tap it. Craziness has already invited me in, and right now I need to hear another voice.
"What now Io?" I ask my phone.
"To what are you referring, Amo?" she answers, like she doesn't have any idea what's going on.
"All this." I spread my arm to take in the dark and empty coffee shop.
"I believe we're in your favorite coffee shop. Aren't you mayor here?"
I chuckle. Io is pretty good at liaising with other apps, even with the Internet down. "I am."
"All hail the mayor," she says puckishly. "You have coffee to hand out today."
I snort a laugh. I have all the coffee in New York.
"I'll get right on that," I say, and pocket the phone.
Next up, I need some more security. I doubt the LARA boards would stop a throng. Ideas race through my head. I need something sturdy a wall of some kind.
I glance around the dark shop. There's a few shelves here, some tables and chairs, maybe enough to stop the flood at the door, but not enough to properly secure all the windows. Even more importantly, what good will a secure coffee shop do me if Lara arrives and all she can see is a flood of bodies outside?
She won't come near. She probably won't see the sign.
I need to press outward and reclaim the street. Nothing in here can do that, but I have an idea of what might.
I climb the stairs into the dark of the library mezzanine. The familiar smell of old, well-worn paper surrounds me, mingling with the rich aroma of ingrained coffee. It feels like safety. In the corner lies the wood-paneled fire door in the corner. The emergency light above it glows a dull green.
I stride over with the dumbbell bar in my hand. My heart pounds in the silence. A simple twist of the lever in the handle unlocks it, and I jump back
ward while it swings open smoothly.
Beyond there's a nondescript stairwell lit by emergency lights. Cold dank air streams over my face. Raw concrete steps spiral upward in a tight oblong.
"Hello?" I call.
No answer comes. It makes sense there would have been no one on these steps in the middle of the night.
Across the way are the toilets and the glow of another emergency exit. I walk over, depress the emergency bar and swing the door open. Light floods in, and I step out onto a tiny, ancient loading dock, about a meter tall above the ground, like a balcony overlooking the inner square of a New York block, fully enclosed by buildings. It strikes me like a peaceful oasis. A cracked and weed-sprung road leads twenty yards away, overshadowed on all sides, then stops dead at a wall.
It's a remnant, I suppose; a donut block in the middle of New York, with a road that would have once allowed resupply trucks in and out, now sealed up by buildings. I eye the surrounding structures. They all have windows and doors facing this way. There is not a single floater about.
I found an escape route. Through this tiny forgotten access road I can surely enter any building in the block, and exit at any point I like on 23rd or 24th, 1st or 2nd Avenue. It's a good thing to have.
I duck back inside.
The stairwell takes me up, winding. The air is clammy and cold. The door to the second floor doesn't open. I give it a few desultory hits with the bar, accomplishing nothing but putting tiny dints in the metal handle. I keep on up. The third floor is locked too, but the fourth floor door opens readily.
It leads to a bright modern office, with glass partition walls lining a gray-carpet corridor, leading away parallel to the floor-to-ceiling windows on the left. Fresh light rinses over banks of desks, computers, and the occasional whiteboard to either side of the glass corridor. A fern stands pert in a ceramic pot by the door, a coffee machine and water cooler face me in a tucked-away culvert, and a wooden door chock skitters away when I accidentally kick it.
It looks like the office of a tech firm, or maybe a telesales depot. Do we have those in New York? I don't know. Probably they have their logo and a receptionist up at the far end; there must be a lift too that I've never seen, perhaps connected from one of the adjoining buildings.
I pad along the fuzzy gray carpet, peering left and right into both sides of the office through the glass walls. Cords run everywhere like tangled veins, for phones, computers, printers, all redundant now.
I stop in the middle. There's nobody here, but more building material than I could have hoped for. The desks look solid, and I'm pretty certain I can craft an ocean-proof wall out of them. I start planning the procedure.
Then I hear a shuffle. It's coming from the far end, where a gray partition wall rises flanked by more ferns. I set my feet and slide the pack off my back. Seconds later a fat gray guy emerges.
My heart does a belly flop. He pops out of cover at a lurching run, bouncing lightly off one of the glass walls, his glowing white eyes homed in on me. There's dark blood down his white shirt and staining his navy jacket. His black tie is askew like he's tried to hang himself with it and the rope broke, twisting at a painful angle. His neck is flushed red, his feet slap the floor, and there's a glinting silver shield at his waist.
He's private security, surely got infected while patrolling the floors last night. I spin but there's no time to run to for the stairwell, and I can't cede this building anyway. I need these desks, I need to keep Sir Clowdesley secure. He charges at me like a damn bull charging, probably hungry to eat my brains, but I'm not about to play patty-cake with him either.
I charge right back.
10. PATTY-CAKE
When we're about ten feet apart I launch myself into the air, feet first. For a second I fly, then I impact the guy's chest full on and punch him off his feet. My heels catch on his chin and send me somersaulting through the air past him. Before I hit the ground, I have time for just one thought:
I dropkicked the shit out of this bastard.
Then I hit the friction-burn carpet and crack my side hard, roll and smack my ankle bizarrely off the flat glass, and wind up lying on my side with my wrist throbbing. What the shit? That was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done. It was also utterly awesome.
I think this for about two seconds, until I get up and see another security guy coming at me from behind the divider, while his buddy shakes the fall off and starts to run too. Shit, what are they breeding back there?
I bolt up and turn to the glass to my right. One good stab with the bar and jagged clumps of it come down, another smack affords me some clearance, and I leap through seconds before they smack chest-first into each other.
I spring up on an office chair, which then reclines weirdly, like some asshole hasn't even taken the time to set it in a proper position, twisting my ankle. I fall onto the long bank of desks, smacking my knee on the edge and catching myself bodily on a monitor, which then folds back so I smack my face on a keyboard.
My teeth crunch, I bite my lip, my gut and chest spark with pain where the monitor top hit, and a hand grabs at my feet.
"Shit!" I yell, and scrabble away with the pain forgotten. I roll into a chair on the other side of the bank and then out of it again, so now I'm standing on a twingeing ankle with two fat mall cops wheezing evilly at me. Finally, to put the cherry on top of the cake, they split up and come for me around either side of the desks.
I look around desperately, remembering how little my computer monitor did to the floater outside my block. There are actually the same brand of computer here, which seems ironic.
There's one more long bank of desks and I climb up onto it. Monitors are the only thing I can use, and even if they don't kill them, they might buy me some time. I run to the end of the desks, toward the guy I dropkicked. I pick up a screen just as he comes near, and throw it with all my strength. It arcs beautifully towards him, a perfect shot, then catches on its cables with a crack and spins, swinging hard back toward my feet.
I cry out and leap away, dancing for my balance as it crunches onto the desk and the screen shatters. I get my balance back standing in the middle of the far bank on a keyboard and a mouse-mat, again with nowhere to go. Both of the fat guys are right in front of me now, blocked only from grabbing my legs by a row of wheelie office chairs.
This is utterly stupid.
I snatch up a Bluetooth wireless keyboard and Frisbee it at the nearest of them. It cracks off his mouth and his head recoils but it makes no difference. He stumbles through the chairs blindly, reaching for my feet.
I bring the bar down edge first. It buries in his eye socket with a horrible slurp and a geyser of gray goo. I gag and pull back, but the bar is lodged now and I just tug him closer, pulling myself off balance.
As I'm about to fall into his embrace, I push away, relinquishing the bar. He staggers back with blood and gray matter gushing down his face, but he doesn't go down. The other one is through the chairs now and almost on me.
I run two steps then jump for the aisle between the banks, where I back away tipping chairs over between us. They stumble over them. This is better. I get some clearance and space, and at last they're both following me the same way. I could do this all day.
At the bank's edge I grab another monitor, unplug it swiftly, and hurl it at the nearest one. It hits him edge-on in the face and breaks open his nose and his eye-socket. He falls back for a second and the one with my bar in his eye comes on harder. He looks a horrible mess.
I unplug another monitor and throw, but miss. Shit. I run halfway down the other bank, tipping more chairs, and toss the next monitor. It hits him in the neck with a gristly crunch and he goes down, this time staying down to gurgle and spit. OK. I unplug three more monitors in advance of the guy with the broken jaw reaching me, then hurl them at him in fast succession. One misses, one hits his head, and the third time's the charm with another crunch and gurgle in his neck.
He goes down. My arms throb. I stand there and p
ant. I wipe my hoodie over my face, coming away with blood and gray juice. The office is silent again but for my breath and their palsied, bubbly rasping.
I stand there and wait for it to stop, but it doesn't. I pick my way over cautiously. The bar guy is looking up at me with his one good eye. His fingertips reach toward me, but his arms lie slack.
It is too creepy.
I walk along the desk to the other one. He's just the same, a caved-in throat and a motionless body, but eyes that track me. It's horrible. I've killed them but they're not dead. Do I have to kill them again?
I back up and start to shake. I clamber over my own alley of tumbled chairs and around to the hole in the glass. In the corridor I stand and shudder. I can't believe this shit. How many times? I start back for the fire door, thinking maybe I'll go down to Sir Clowdesley and get some coffee and wait for Lara, but what am I going to tell her about this?
"Yeah I half-killed two of them upstairs, I just left them lying there like those creepy paintings in a haunted mansion. It was too gross to deal with them, and I couldn't handle using the desks to make a wall with them watching me. What do you mean you'd rather go survive alone than do it with me? It'll be fine, I have moral compunctions."
She flies off on an albatross. She rides a unicorn out of town.
Shit. I rub my eyes and stamp my feet. They haven't moved. I haven't moved. It's between them and me, and it has to be me.
I start back. I go to the one on the edge first, with my bar in his head. 'You can keep it, pal,' I feel like saying, but this is no time for levity.
I nudge his head with my foot. It lolls to the side with no control. I nudge it back the other way. I can't think of a way to make this less disgusting, or less of a horrible memory. I've painted zombie head explosions a hundred times in comics, but it's never so visceral as when they actually look just like regular people, only paler. I can smell the tangy blood and the bitter salt of brain. I can see it oozing out in live-motion before me.
Maybe use a computer monitor, I think? But I don't like the thought of feeling the weight crack through his skull and mulch his brain. The fewer senses involved the better.
The Last Mayor Box Set 1 Page 6
