by Jeff Carlson
Emily’s heart beat so hard she was shaking. From the outside, she knew, the heavy tint reduced the windows to mirrors. Their own reflections must have been more visible to them than her silhouette.
Screeeeeee. His crowbar traced across the glass, testing it. Then he drew his arm back to strike.
“Wait!” Emily cried.
P.J.’s gaze snapped to her, and he paused. Did he recognize her? Could he recognize her?
The feral intelligence in his eyes was unlike anything she’d seen in him. This wasn’t her nephew. Emily didn’t understand how that was possible, but someone else was walking inside his body.
Laura’s house was four miles away. The boy Emily loved wouldn’t have been able to hike four miles, much less cover that distance in an hour.
Why had he come here?
He’d never visited her workplace. Even if he had, he probably couldn’t have followed the directions by himself.
What if Laura sent him to me? she thought, grasping at the hope that her sister was alive. But in truth, she was even more afraid for Laura if Laura had been confronted with this new boy.
P.J. was breathing oddly. Everyone in the group breathed the same way, not in unison, which would have been even more disturbing, but each man inhaled with a flare of nostrils, then exhaled in a gust from his mouth. Slow breath in, quick air out. It reminded her of something.
There wasn’t time to study them. P.J. scraped his crowbar up the window again. Emily jumped as the metal crossed her face, then stopped with her body half-turned to run.
They didn’t care about her.
Sick with adrenaline, every muscle twitching, Emily stayed at the window as P.J. touched his crowbar over five points like a constellation. What in God’s name is he doing? she thought. Is he—
He was singing.
Another man raised his voice in harmony, piping one note in response. A second man matched him. Then a third. Each of them bobbed his head with strict timing like different parts of one choir. P.J. was the conductor, directing them with his crowbar and his lilting voice.
“Nnnnn mh,” P.J. sang with a tap on the glass.
The man beside him answered, “Hhn.”
“Nnnnn mh,” P.J. sang, tap tap again on the glass.
“Hn,” the next man sang.
Emily realized he was touching his own reflection and indicating his friends. They’re identifying each other.
It was an astonishing notion. Her fright blended with superstitious awe. These men were strangers to each other—that was her best guess—and yet they’d changed like P.J., which had made them comrades. Who were they?
Then the sky shuddered.
P.J.’s group slumped onto the lawn, his crowbar rattling against the window as they fell. Outside, faintly, Emily heard a great squall of terror. Thousands of people were screaming, disoriented and hurt. The sound prickled her arms with gooseflesh.
She rushed to the glass. P.J. and his men were dazed, barely moving, although three different people ran into the street. Others kept shouting where she couldn’t see them.
What if P.J.’s group was more sensitive to the effect than everyone else?
I could bring them inside, she thought.
None of DNAllied’s windows were designed to open. Emily glanced at a fire extinguisher recessed in the wall. The fire extinguisher should be heavy enough to break the glass, but they might need the building longer than she wanted to believe. Bashing out the window would be foolish.
One of the men struggled to his feet, the guy in the Lakers jersey. He had sandy hair and close-set eyes—and there was blood on his shirt. Could she trust him?
Emily pounded her fist on the glass. “You have to get inside!” she yelled. “Can you hear me!? Get inside!”
He looked up, but his eyes were foggy.
“There’s a door around the building to your left!” Emily yelled. “I’m coming! I’ll help!”
She ran down the corridor, then dodged through an office space packed with cubicles. There was a fire exit around the corner—
“Emily!” Ray said. He dropped the desk chair in his arms and lumbered into her path.
She gaped at the exit. He’d constructed a barricade with three desks and a hunk of cubicle paneling, blocking off the glass wall.
“The light stopped!” she said. “We can go outside.”
“No one’s going outside.”
“We have to move this stuff!”
“Emily.” Ray grabbed her arm, red-faced and sweaty. He was past his prime, but he outweighed her by eighty pounds even if most of it was fat. He was also two inches taller.
“Everyone’s okay!” she said.
His hand squeezed tighter. “Quiet.”
“Ow. Ray—”
“Be quiet.”
Someone else had entered the building. Emily heard a man’s voice. His words were firm and quick. What was he saying?
She and Ray stared at each other as new tension leapt between them. Then he turned toward the voice, dragging Emily with him. She didn’t yell or fight. She didn’t want to make any sound that would alert the intruder.
Ray’s fingers were painful on her arm, and he smelled like fear—but as they approached the break room, the intruder’s voice was disrupted by a roar of static.
Emily laughed, an uneven sound of excitement. The voice they’d heard was the radio. It said: “Guard stations wherever possible with police and firefighter units. I repeat, all military per—”
More static.
“—and emergency—”
Static.
She pulled her arm from Ray’s grip. “My nephew is out there!” she said.
“The Army will find us. You heard him.”
“Ray, other people are all right! We’re not the only ones and you can’t lock me inside!” she yelled, coiling herself into a karate stance.
Twenty minutes ago, they’d embraced each other. Now a quiet part of Emily wept at the unfairness of what they’d become. Was this who they really were? Barely more than animals?
Outside, a horn was blaring. More distantly, they heard a deep crashing noise as if a building had collapsed. How close were the fires? The idea of being caught in an inferno made her shout again. “We can’t stay here!” she yelled.
“If the Army—”
The static from the radio became an ear-splitting squawk as both of them stumbled, suddenly woozy. Ray fell to his knees.
It’s back, Emily thought. For a second, the building hadn’t protected them from the return of the effect. She saw her chance.
She sprinted from the break room before Ray regained his feet.
In the street, the air spun with storm winds. The world outside was a kaleidoscope of shadows, dust, and one flash of unobstructed daylight.
Emily didn’t pause at the fire exit. Ray would catch her if she stopped. Besides, no one stood waiting at the glass. If they’d come to that door, she was too late, so she ran for the corridor where she’d seen P.J.
He was gone. So were his companions.
Emily raised her hand to the window. She scrubbed angrily at the wet streaks on her face. She would have given anything to be with Laura or Chase. Her parents. Anyone. Were they alive?
She looked at the city through curtains of ash and smoke. Hidden in the gloom, she noticed the sun had begun to sink toward the west horizon. It was early evening, and the realization gave her new hope.
Maybe the effect would end when the sun went down.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
There was another interrupt, Marcus thought as consciousness returned, but he was more preoccupied by the insistent drive of his muscles and spine.
He was making love to a dark-haired woman. She lay on her back on the blue carpet, spreading her knees wide for him. His cheek pressed against hers. His nose was tantalized by the pleasant musk of her hair and her welcoming body.
At first he wasn’t sure if it was a dream. His hips thrust between the open fork of her thighs as she moaned and
rocked her pelvis up to meet him. She climaxed. Daylight shone through the window as she held him and shuddered. They were in the same office. None of the mess had been cleaned, although the overturned desk had been shoved against the door as if to protect them from anyone in the hall.
The woman was Rebecca Drayer.
“Yuh, you,” Marcus stammered in confusion, then fear. His head cleared like he’d been electrocuted.
The change in Drayer was total and abrupt. As she regained her senses, placing herself, she recoiled. But she was pinned beneath him. Marcus jerked away, hurting himself as he withdrew. His erection wilted.
Drayer screamed, “What are—!?”
She swung her fist at his face as she scrabbled away. She barely connected with his jaw, but Marcus accepted the blow. Drayer’s hands went to her groin and her breasts, seeking pain or blood, covering her nudity as she sat up. What she found was evidence of her own sexual excitement.
“Can’t, we can’t…” she stammered.
In her cheeks and in her chest, the high blush of her passion deepened into shock. Then she went white-faced with humiliation, horror, outrage.
Marcus realized he was staring. He brought his palm to his eyes, trying—stupidly—to give her privacy. They were too close together. He stayed on his knees, not wanting her to feel threatened. She scrambled to her feet.
“I don’t know what…” he said.
“I was… You… HELP!” Drayer yelled as she stepped back from him. The door was on the other side of Marcus. He saw her gauge how much room she had to run around him.
Could she drag the overturned desk away from the door by herself? Should he offer to help?
Floundering for the appropriate response, Marcus hid his privates with his hand. His testicles throbbed as if he’d been kicked. Where were his pants?
Drayer kept her arm across her breasts and her other hand over her groin, her expression tortured by bewilderment and loathing.
“HELP!” she yelled.
“I wasn’t… assaulting you.” Marcus stumbled through his words.
“HELP ME!”
No one came running. No one shouted back. The station was silent.
Drayer’s eyes blazed as she ducked to the floor, sorting through the clothes strewn among the paperwork, the phone, the lamp. She was prepared to fight him if necessary.
“It was the interrupt,” Marcus said. “We were… different.”
Drayer grabbed pants and a shirt. She bundled the clothing against her belly and stalked past him, less interested now in concealing her body than in fleeing from him.
The desk stopped her. She latched onto a corner and dragged. A leg caught on the carpet. Drayer grunted and then screamed in dismay, hindered by the ball of clothing. She wouldn’t let go of it. She tugged at the desk and gained an inch.
“Let me help you. Please. Let me help.” Marcus found his jeans and yanked them on. Then he approached her as delicately as possible.
Drayer flinched. She couldn’t look at him.
He pulled at one of the desk legs. The desk slid a foot from the door. For the slightest microsecond, Drayer’s gaze flickered toward his face, conveying anguish and panic—and relief?
She fled into the hall.
“Drayer!” he shouted, but even that felt wrong. Rebecca. Did her friends call her Becky?
He felt dehydrated, bruised, and ill. Were those physiological reactions to the interrupt or caused by his shame? Drayer was married. The two of them were strangers. Having sex together was akin to rape, although she’d been an eager participant.
Why was I doing that to her?
Then, more insidiously: Why was she letting me?
Marcus wanted to close the door and hide.
He blamed Drayer for his decision to send Roell home, but now she must feel like she was carrying her own curse. He needed to help her. He needed her to help him. Who else was alive? Why hadn’t anyone answered when she screamed?
He hurried to get dressed.
In her rush, she’d abandoned her undergarments. Marcus couldn’t imagine taking her white panties and bra with him. He nudged a paper file into a heap with his toes, burying the cotton lace. Then he averted his eyes. He put on his shirt. He couldn’t find his socks.
His head was sluggish. He had a pounding migraine. His soul felt undone by sympathy and guilt.
As always, he took comfort in the habit of analysis.
We made love before.
After the last interrupt, what he’d assumed were memories of Janet had, in reality, been physical traces of Drayer. They’d kissed or rubbed each other until she woke up and ran. Then they’d investigated the station and the cars together. Had she recalled the first time or, like him, had she retained only vague impressions until now?
Marcus surveyed the mess they’d ignored and the desk they’d used for security when the door itself was unlocked. During an interrupt, they were clearly unintelligent, screwing like animals when their families needed them.
How much do we remember? Is it possible that I feel like the station is important even if I don’t know why?
He ran his hand over his face. His beard stubble hadn’t increased since morning, and he doubted he would shave if he wasn’t interested in fixing the array. He assumed it was still the first day. Good.
Then he had another unsettling thought.
He hadn’t orgasmed, although he’d been close. He’d certainly ejaculated traces of sperm. He hadn’t worn a condom. He worried if she was on the pill or the patch or had an IUD.
Forget that for now. Find her. Make sure she’s okay.
Where is everyone?
A forbidding sense of déjà vu encompassed Marcus as he stepped into the hall. The last time he’d walked through the station’s dark interior, he’d found a dead man…
The wind rushed over the building.
Outside, a door creaked back and forth.
“Don’t come any closer,” Drayer said. Her pale face waited for him in the doorway of the next office. She was dressed again, her black hair tied in a knot. She seemed to have regained her composure. “Don’t you come near me,” she said.
Marcus’s face burned. “I’m sorry.”
She was a formidable woman, a professional through and through. Like him, she’d drawn on her training and her intellect to reassure herself. Of course she felt violated. She must feel petrified, and she resented her weakness. She said, “What’s happening to us?”
Words spilled out of him. “I think we lose our short-term memories with each interrupt. When the pulse hits, it erases or stunts our personalities. We forget who we are. Then it stops. But I think the effect lasts several minutes after the event. It probably interferes with our memories from several minutes prior as well.”
“That doesn’t explain why you…”
“I’m sorry.”
“We…” Drayer shook herself. “People may be injured,” she said. Her voice was strong. She did not ask more questions. She gave him a command. “We need to find everyone and see if they’re okay,” she said.
“Good idea.” Marcus would have agreed with anything. He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to ask if he’d hurt her physically, but he was leery of setting off a new firestorm of accusations.
She touched her forehead and her dark, sweaty hair. “My head,” she said. “I’m not sure where to look. Where would they go?”
“The ranch house. The electronics room. I don’t know. But they would have heard you, heard us if they were in the station.” He tried again to apologize. “Drayer, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to…”
“It won’t happen again.”
“I know,” he said, although it was useless to promise. Whoever they’d become during the interrupts, they’d freely chosen to make love. He wanted to hurry past her to the lounge and the control room, but he hesitated, reluctant to move toward her. “It’s not too late to jury-rig the computers and a generator,” he said.
She was skeptical. “You think you can u
se the array to predict the next flare?”
“That’s what we agreed to do.”
“It didn’t work.”
“We must have been caught outside the electronics room,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to go searching through the hills or the ranch house. Everyone will come here if they can.”
“Not if they’re injured.”
“We may not have much time before there’s another interrupt. If we’re in the open…” Marcus left his words unspoken. The implication was cruel, but it was true.
By her silence, he knew Drayer understood.
If we’re caught in the open, we may become mates again.
Drayer gestured for him to take the lead. Marcus’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected her to defer to him. She was a federal agent—but she wasn’t James Bond. She was a desk worker, a computer analyst. Equally important, she was unarmed. He was larger. They didn’t know who or what they’d find. Marcus was also more familiar with the station.
He went first into the gloom.
Drayer followed him, keeping her distance yet getting closer as soon as he was ten feet ahead. Their circumstances were insane. She clearly didn’t want to be with him. She also didn’t want to be alone. And what options did she have? To run outside? What if there were more dead bodies or murderers or rapists?
The last doorway in the hall was a gaping mouth. Outside, the wind groaned. Marcus’s heart jackhammered in his chest.
He crept forward like a man in a nightmare.
At the door, he peeked in. It was a storage closet. One shelf had been cracked, bowing in the middle, leaving an avalanche of ink cartridges and reams of paper on the floor. Marcus didn’t know what he’d expected. Someone waiting to attack?
He stopped at the end of the hall, quivering with tension.
“What is it?” Drayer hissed. “What do you see?”
In the lounge, the damage had increased. The windows had been shattered like the vending machines. The door to the outside was still propped open by the TV, but the dead man was gone. Someone had taken him. Most of the broken glass had been swept against the wall, leaving small shards on the carpet.
