It looked as if Peter C had some difficulty swallowing the last bit of egg with Faller and his knife so close.
The console buzzed. Peter A checked it. “It’s Woolcoff.” He tapped a key and Woolcoff’s image appeared on the screen mounted on the wall. “You think you’re pretty damned clever, don’t you?”
“Evidently I’m the smartest person alive.” Faller glanced at the Peters. “Although now I guess it’s a hundred-and-fifty-way tie.”
Woolcoff leaned closer to the screen. “‘Evidently.’ So I really did get you with the virus. I didn’t realize until I found the map you drew.”
“It got me. But it didn’t stop me.”
Woolcoff folded his arms. “And what are you going to do now, Mr. Genius?”
“I’m working on it.”
Woolcoff grunted. “I could bolt the door from the outside and leave you to rot. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Faller gestured at A and C. “I have hostages. Innocent men.” He waited for what he knew was coming.
“Innocent men.” Woolcoff waved a dismissive hand. “They’re you, down to the last cell. I’m looking forward to the day when I can line every one of you in front of a firing squad, but for now, I’ll settle for three.”
Faller couldn’t suppress a half-smile. Let his companions chew on that little nugget for a moment.
“Would you mind refreshing my memory, since you took the liberty of erasing it? I understand you murdered the original me. What were we fighting about, exactly?”
Ugo uncrossed his arms, moved his face closer to the monitor. “Among other things, you killed my wife.”
Faller was sick of people telling him he’d been a cold-blooded killer before Day One. He knew who he was, and people didn’t change just because you wiped their memories. That was becoming clearer to Faller by the day. “You mean I took a gun, or a knife or something, and murdered her with it?”
“You might as well have.” Ugo’s anger was coming to the surface. “You’re such an idiot. You have the worst judgment of anyone who’s ever lived, and still you go barreling on, leaving ruined lives, a ruined world, in your wake. No more, though.”
Ugo’s face vanished.
Faller turned to Peter C. “Do you still hate me a little more—”
Peter C raised his hand. “Save it. I’ll do it.”
“You need help?” Peter A said.
“No, I’ve got it.” Peter C looked up at Faller. “Peter Sandoval and I are going to finish what he started.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe afterward we’ll all meet nice girls, settle down in houses along Jamestown Road, raise kids. Whatever happens, it has to be better than this.” He leaned over the console. Faller watched his hands sweep the air, his fingers tap.
A sheen of sweat formed on Peter C’s brow as the smile faded, replaced by tension, maybe fear. Finally, he swiveled to face Faller.
“We’re one function away from blackout. There’s no taking it back once it’s released. What’s it going to be, Sandoval?”
“Do it. And my name is Faller. Don’t call me Sandoval again. I’m no more or less Sandoval than you are.”
Peter C spun back to his console, tapped the air once. He got up, went to the far end of the room and peered in at the singularity.
“You said it would take a few hours?” Faller asked.
“Sixteen to twenty,” C said from across the room. “The air is so permeated that we’re all going to be patient zero simultaneously.”
Whatever that meant.
“Can I make a suggestion?” C asked. “If I were you two, I’d move away from that door.”
Faller looked at the door, back at C. “Why is that?”
Mr. A, who was already moving toward the back of the room, answered. “Ugo’s not going to be satisfied leaving you to starve. He’s going to try to get that door open.”
XXVII
PETER WOKE with a start. He’d been dreaming that a hole had opened under his bed, and he was falling right down through the core of the Earth. He woke to a reality no less bizarre.
He found a new toothbrush under the sink, brushed his teeth using pink lemonade instead of water.
Using the telescope, he checked out the street below. Most of the people who passed were carrying things, or pushing carts. Peter felt no impulse to race outside and join them, although he was aware that every moment he delayed gathering food, water, and weapons reduced his odds of survival. He wasn’t afraid. Guilt currently crowded out the possibility of any other emotion.
There was no possible way he could build a new duplicator with the materials available on this island, so there was no chance of acquiring another singularity. Even if he had a singularity, the odds of ever understanding it well enough to repair the world seemed remote. What he should probably do is seek out President Aspen. Presenting himself to her wouldn’t solve anything, but he could explain what happened, and, using what authority she retained, perhaps she could help the rest of the population understand. Of course, doing that would dramatically increase the odds he would be hung from a street lamp or burned alive.
It would be nice to have a handgun for protection. He went from room to room, looking in drawers and cabinets, hoping to get lucky.
The apartment’s second bedroom was a child’s room. From the abundance of action figures and military vehicles, Peter guessed its resident had been a boy of seven or eight.
A toy paratrooper hung from the lamp on the nightstand. Peter unhooked it from the light switch, looked it over. The figure was about an inch long, dressed in brown camo fatigues and a matching helmet. His parachute was light green, round, with slits in three of the panels.
He crumpled the parachute and figure together and tossed it toward the ceiling. The parachute deployed crisply. Peter swept the paratrooper off the floor and stuffed it in his front pocket as a plan began to form.
What were the odds that Williamsburg was below Manhattan in this new world order? Maybe using the telescope he could examine each of the islands within range, identify them, and form some working hypothesis about how the various land parcels had shaken out. Maybe.
Even if he had to jump blind, though, Peter would take the chance if he could locate a parachute, or make one. He had nothing to lose, and, besides his lab, Melissa was out there somewhere. Five Melissas were out there, actually. He knew she would never forgive him; odds were she’d lost all faith in him after what he’d done. But he still needed to find her. Even if she despised him, he would give anything to see her, to be near her.
He wanted to find his friends as well. For an instant, he couldn’t remember Harry’s and Kathleen’s faces, then they came rushing back, and with them Peter felt such sharp longing to see them, mixed with a strange tangled grief from Harry’s death. He still didn’t know how to grieve for someone who was both gone and not gone.
They were all gone, now, unless he could find them.
The sky was mesmerizing. So enormous from his vantage point, dotted with cumulus humilis, like so many giant marshmallows.
* * *
HE FELT like he was coming awake, but he hadn’t been asleep, he’d been watching the clouds. Peter stood, dragged his hands down his face, tried to banish the fog from his mind. He had to get going, locate a parachute somewhere on this island in the sky so he could find …
A sick, crawling sensation slid through his gut. For a moment he hadn’t been able to remember who he wanted to find. He’d forgotten Melissa.
He headed for the stairs.
People were hard at work foraging for supplies. A young guy in a purple shirt and sunglasses passed on the sidewalk pushing a cart loaded with bottled water, a pistol pinned between his hand and the cart handle.
An altercation on the corner half a block away caught his eye. Peter edged closer until he could hear a man and woman arguing. The woman was terribly distraught.
“… get away from me, I said.”
The man held out his hand. “Sabrina, please. I
don’t understand what’s the matter with you. It’s me. It’s Joey.”
“Don’t touch me. Leave me alone.”
“Sabrina, you’re sick or something. We gotta get you somewhere safe. To a doctor or something.”
Peter jogged back in the other direction, then stopped, looked around, not quite sure where to go. He’d done it—he’d really done it. Peter tried to think of the man’s name, but came up blank. Big guy, always wore a hat. If the symptoms were manifesting now, he must have released the blackout virus sixteen to twenty hours before he sent Peter the warning.
They’d had an argument, he and the big guy, but Peter couldn’t remember what it had been about. A woman.
A girl, thirteen or fourteen, passed Peter on the sidewalk, crying hysterically. She reached up, pressed her palms over her ears, screeched, “Where do I live?”
He had to think of a way to hang on to who he was.
Then he remembered the singularity. Its energy could be used to alleviate some of this. It could be transported in fuel cells to these islands. He and the other Peter who’d helped move it were the only people who knew where it was hidden. He had to write it down before he forgot.
Only, victims of the blackout virus couldn’t read. He wouldn’t remember how to read in a few hours. The thought was terrifying. He took a few deep breaths, tried to calm himself.
What if he drew pictures? Or a map?
He pulled out his wallet. There was nothing big enough to write on, only his ID card and a few photos. One of him and his wife, on their honeymoon. If she had known he still carried it around, she would have laughed that harsh, sarcastic laugh he’d only heard for the first time after everything went bad.
He dropped the wallet and its contents on the sidewalk, saving only the photo. When he tried to put the photo in his pocket, his fingers brushed something already in there.
He pulled out the paratrooper. He’d forgotten all about the parachute. Was there time to locate one?
Peter closed his eyes, tried to get a sense of how quickly the virus was doing its work. He had no idea where he’d grown up, had no memory of being a child, of having parents. He was a physicist—he still remembered that. His name was …
It wouldn’t come.
He had to hurry. Patting his pockets, he realized he had nothing to write with. He could go to the closest apartment building, find an empty apartment and kick in the door. That would take time. He might forget what he wanted to write down by then.
He froze. What did he want to write down?
Straining to remember, he spotted the paratrooper in his hand. It came back to him.
There was a penknife on his key chain. He could cut his finger and use his blood. That was good—it would convey to his memory-wiped future self that the map was important, something he’d literally bled for. Glancing around, he spotted a discarded Milk Duds box in the gutter. He tore it open at the seam, flattened it on the sidewalk.
He opened the penknife, and without hesitation sliced into the pad of his thumb in one quick, violent pass.
Blood pattered onto the sidewalk in thick drops. Dipping the fingernail of his index finger into the blood, he started at the bottom, drawing a flag. He steadied his trembling hand by clutching it with the other, smearing both with blood in the process.
As he sketched out the ovals to represent the world as it was now, he kept forgetting what he was doing, and why. To fight against forgetting, he repeated aloud, “I’m drawing a map,” over and over as he worked.
52
FALLER CALLED Storm.
“Are you all right?” Storm asked.
“I’m fine. I need you to ask Melissa how long it takes after the blackout virus is released before it’s no longer contagious.”
Faller heard muffled conversation as Storm spoke to Melissa. “About four days.”
“It can’t spread from one world to another, can it?” Although it was a little late to be thinking of that.
Storm consulted with Melissa. “Not unless someone who’s infected carries it there. Why? What did you do?”
“I released it on Ugo’s world.”
Melissa whooped.
“The thing is, I’m still on Ugo’s world.”
“Hang on, you released the blackout virus on yourself?”
Faller had started pacing without realizing it. He stopped. “It was everyone or no one. At the time it seemed like the best of a lot of bad options.”
“When I see you, you’re not going to recognize me. It’ll be Day One for you all over again.”
Her words set off a crawling dread inside him. Day One all over again. He’d almost rather die. “I could stand the thought of Day One all over again if it didn’t mean forgetting you.”
“I’ll remember for both of us,” Storm said.
“Listen, I’m the guy in the shirt with the number two on it. I don’t want you to ride off into the sunset with one of these other clowns.”
“Very funny,” C said.
53
SOON FALLER wouldn’t remember thinking the thoughts he was thinking now. It seemed impossible. He wondered if he could hang on to some of his memories, or even just one, through force of will. What if he held it firmly in his mind, repeated it while the virus did its work? If it were possible, which memory would he choose to keep above all others? Which memory of Storm was the quintessential moment in their time together?
Storm inviting him to join her in Penny’s bedroom?
Their reconciliation, while they fell from Snakebite’s world?
Faller thought of their midair reunion, after Woolcoff tipped the Orchid world. If not for what had followed, that would be his fondest memory.
A muffled explosion shook the room, knocking Faller off his chair.
“Here we go,” C said from the spot on the floor where he’d landed.
The steel door was still in place, but there was a deep, jagged crease toward the bottom. Faller crawled a bit closer to inspect the damage. There was a six-inch breach where the door had pulled away from the wall. He could see into the hall, and heard voices, although he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Peter C coughed. “Here we go—a little tickle in my throat. That’s how it starts. Another hour or so and we’ll be vegetables.”
Faller eyed the door. “I’m not sure we’ve got an hour.”
* * *
ANOTHER EXPLOSION rocked the room, sending electronic equipment tumbling from the tables, shooting chunks of debris toward the back of the room, where Faller, A, and C were sitting behind an overturned table.
“That almost got it,” a voice said from behind the door. “We can batter it down from here.”
“Can you see them?” a second voice asked.
“No.”
From behind the table Faller flung the assault rifle toward the door, followed by the handgun. “We’re not armed.” He coughed again. The tickle in his throat was getting persistent.
There was a bang as something hit the door. The massive hinges holding the door squealed.
“Come on, let’s try to look passive.” Faller pushed the table aside, got down on his knees and put his hands behind his head. The others followed his lead, A to Faller’s left, and C to his right. Hopefully if they gave themselves up without a fight, Ugo would pass up shooting them on the spot in order to plan a more public and festive execution.
“It’s true what Ugo said, you know,” Faller said as they knelt on the floor. “I don’t know why you hate me. We’re all the same guy, so you’re just as responsible as I am. And really, from what Melissa told me, this is all Ugo’s fault.”
“Who’s Melissa?” C asked.
At first Faller thought C was being facetious, but he was serious. “If no one here told you about Melissa, they’ve been telling you lies.”
The door crashed to the floor. Faller held perfectly still as half a dozen soldiers rushed in pointing automatic weapons at him. At all three of him.
Two soldiers grabbed
him under his armpits and dragged him out of the room. His knees and feet bumped the concrete steps as they dragged him to ground level and outside.
Ugo was waiting outside, hands on hips, with at least fifty other people.
They dropped Faller at his feet.
“Are you sure you have the right one this time?” Ugo asked.
“I thought you said we were interchangeable.” Faller pinched a piece of grass from his tongue.
Hands grabbed his ankles, pulled off his boots. A soldier walked around and handed Ugo the photo Faller had been carrying since Day One.
Ugo coughed as he tore it in half and dropped the pieces into the grass. “Get up.”
Faller considered defying Ugo, but figured all he’d get for his trouble was a kick in the ribs from one of the soldiers. He stood.
Ugo punched him in the face. The blow landed between his mouth and nose like a sack of rocks, knocking him backward a step. Another punch, to his eye, landed before he could recover.
Faller retreated a few steps as people cheered Ugo on. The thing was, there was almost as much coughing as cheering. Faller had no idea whether he knew how to fight. He raised his fists close to his face, lunged and threw a punch that glanced off Ugo’s cheek. Ugo buried a fist in Faller’s stomach, doubling him over. It surprised Faller how much it hurt. Much worse than getting hit in the face. Ugo was much bigger than him, and looked in shape for a guy with greying hair. And evidently Faller didn’t know how to fight.
Ugo kicked upward, at Faller’s bent face, but missed badly. Faller straightened, even though it sent jets of pain through his stomach, and raised his fists again. He needed to drag this out until the blackout virus knocked Ugo out for him. Faller threw three or four punches in quick succession. Two landed with a satisfying smacking sound.
Howling and red-faced, Ugo stiff-armed Faller in the face, drove him backward until he tripped over someone’s foot and tumbled to the ground. Ugo grabbed him by the hair, lifted his head and punched him, three, four, five times. The last punch caused a sickening cracking sensation in his mouth. Some of Faller’s teeth had broken.
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