Ground Zero rj-13

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Me?”

  “If you love him, you will tell him.”

  “Is that why you told me all this? I could just as easily tell Gia and ruin things between them.”

  The Lady looked at her. “I don’t think you would do such a thing.”

  “I’m even less perfect than Jack. And I’m not even supposed to know about it.”

  She almost wished she didn’t.

  “But you do. And you can tell him where you heard it. You may have an opportunity very soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s coming this way.”

  16

  Jack squatted briefly by the woman who’d screamed—a young, pretty Hispanic with tear-streaked cheeks.

  “Can I help?”

  He doubted he could but he wanted to see what had happened to her.

  A man standing beside her said, “I just called nine-one-one.”

  She showed him a charred area on her forearm. An area maybe four inches long and half an inch deep had been burned away.

  “It hurts!”

  “What did he burn you with? What did it look like?”

  “Nothing! I just brushed against his hand.”

  “But he must have been holding something.”

  She shook her head. “No. I thought so too, but when I looked all I saw was his hand. It was like his skin burned me. But how can that be?”

  “Good question.”

  But it dovetailed with what the Kicker in the basement had said: Anything Darryl touched dissolved.

  Why? How? And if that were true . . .

  He’d been trailing Thompson and Drexler as they followed Darryl, and had wondered all the while what had happened to him. He looked like he was on his way to an audition for George Romero, so people tended to get out of his way. This was the first time something like this had happened. Just lucky, he guessed. If Darryl’s touch meant—

  The blaring of a car horn and the squeal of skidding tires pulled Jack to his feet. He turned in time to see a limo plow into Darryl, sending him flying. He landed on his back on Broadway and rolled once. As he pushed himself off the pavement, the asphalt erupted in black steam where his hands touched it. He regained his feet, shook himself, then resumed his uptown trek as if nothing had happened. Jack watched in shock. That kind of impact should have broken at least one leg. Darryl wasn’t even limping.

  As he approached a gaggle of gawkers that stood in his path, he said something that sounded like, “Mother.”

  Jack started forward. If Darryl waded into them—bloodbath. But Thompson was ahead of him, shouting as he hurried toward the onlookers.

  “Out of his way!”

  Drexler did the same. “Let him through!”

  They needn’t have bothered. The knot was already unraveling at Darryl’s approach.

  Jack held back, stepping into the street and checking out the asphalt Darryl had touched. He found two perfect handprints, each about three inches deep, melted into the pavement. He stepped toward the limo where its driver stood looking back and forth between Darryl’s retreating figure and the hood of his car. A hole had been melted through the steel.

  Only one conclusion here: Darryl wasn’t carrying the Fhinntmanchca, Darryl was the Fhinntmanchca.

  And he was heading uptown.

  Where Jack lived.

  Mother . . .

  The word rushed back at Jack like a bullet. He’d said “Mother.” That could only mean the Lady. They’d assumed the Fhinntmanchca would be out to disrupt the noosphere, but it looked like he—or it, or whatever Darryl had become—was after the Lady herself.

  He pulled out his phone and dialed his apartment.

  No answer.

  He tried the phone he’d given Weezy and the voice mail picked up immediately. She must have shut it off again.

  He watched Darryl’s retreating back. If he was heading for the Lady, then he was heading for the apartment. Jack had to get there first. Warn the Lady. Get her out of there. Tell her to move to the Wilkins ice shelf or someplace equally remote until he’d figured how to deal with this.

  His first thought was to take the subway, but the Sunday trains ran few and far between. Something could go wrong and Darryl might beat him on foot. Best thing was to hoof it up there ahead of him.

  Jack broke into a loping run, planning to bypass Darryl and his two handlers. He was just catching up when he saw Darryl step off the curb and stride into the middle of Columbus Circle. Drexler and Thompson stayed ahead of him, waving their arms, trying to prevent another collision. Amid screeching tires and blaring horns they succeeded—just barely—and Darryl entered Central Park.

  Jack stood staring. If Darryl had been heading toward the apartment, he’d have angled left, staying on Broadway, following it into the Upper West Side. Instead he was taking a straight-ahead uptown course, due north.

  But to where?

  All Jack could do was follow.

  He crossed into the park and quickly caught up. Darryl had left the path and was striding through the trees and bushes, with Drexler and Thompson close behind.

  As he pressed into brush he would push it aside, dissolving whatever he touched. Jack tried to understand what he’d become. Not like he was antimatter, because when matter and antimatter collided, the result was mutual destruction. With Darryl, the destruction was only one-sided. Was that what the Fhinntmanchca was—some sort of human-Otherness hybrid capable of destroying any earthly matter it contacted? That was how it seemed. Except for his clothes. Why hadn’t his clothes dissolved? Had to be a reason, and Jack was sure it wasn’t modesty.

  Darryl marched straight through the Heckscher ball fields, into the trees beyond, and then across the Sheep Meadow. Anyone who might have got in his way took one look at him and moved aside.

  Where the hell was he going?

  When he plowed into the trees at the north end of the Sheep Meadow and kept going, Jack had had enough.

  Time for some answers.

  He checked his pockets. He’d come prepared for various levels of conflict, close order and otherwise: a sap, a miniature stun gun, his backup piece, and an extra mag for his Glock.

  Drexler and Thompson had been so intent on where Darryl was going they’d rarely looked back. Jack had stayed off to the side, following at a distance and at an angle, paralleling their course. As they entered the trees, he picked up his pace and closed the gap.

  When he reached them he had his Glock and stun gun—a Firefly model, the size of a cigarette pack—ready. Thompson was on the left, Drexler on the right, so Jack held his weapons accordingly. Drexler had to know more, so that meant Thompson was going down.

  They heard him at the last moment and turned. Jack pressed the Firefly against Thompson’s upper arm, releasing 950,000 volts into his nervous system.

  “Good morning,” he said to Drexler, jamming the Glock’s muzzle under his chin while he counted off five seconds of shock. Thompson jerked and spasmed, then collapsed as his muscles lost all tone. He lay in the brush, limp and dazed, as threatening as a puddle.

  “Who are you?” Drexler said, on tiptoe now because of the upward pressure of the barrel. “Do you have any idea who I am, who you’re dealing with?”

  Jack pocketed the Firefly, grabbed the man’s shirtfront, and wheeled him around so he could keep an eye on Thompson. Then he chose his words for maximum impact.

  “Your precious Fhinntmanchca—where’s it going?”

  Drexler’s eyes widened in shock. “What—what did you say?”

  “You heard me. Your Fhinntmanchca—what’s it up to?” He lowered the pistol to Drexler’s gut. “Don’t worry, it’s not answer or die—it’s answer or hurt a lot. An awful lot. Ever been gut shot?”

  “Nein! Don’t!”

  “Then educate me. What do you expect it to do?”

  “I have no idea, I swear!”

  “Didn’t the One tell you?”

  That had been a shot in the dark, but it struck pay dirt. Jack hadn’
t thought Drexler’s eyes could widen any further, but they managed.

  “Who are you? How can you know—?”

  Jack shook him and spoke through his teeth. “What . . . is . . . happening?”

  “I swear I don’t know. That’s why I was following—to see. I swear.”

  Jack believed him. Rasalom was supposedly the only one who knew, and if he wasn’t talking, then Drexler had to find out on his own, just like Jack.

  But not with Jack.

  He took a small step back and looked him up and down. His white suit was speckled with what looked like coffee stains.

  “You fallen on hard times? What happened to your wonderful ice cream suit? You used to be such a neatnik.”

  The blue eyes bored into Jack’s. “How do you know me?” The eyes narrowed. “We’ve met before, haven’t we? The Taint is heavy upon you. I know you—”

  Enough of that. Jack spun him around.

  “What are you doing?”

  He pulled out the Firefly and jammed it against the back of his neck. Five seconds later he joined Thompson on the ground. The Kicker king was stirring so Jack gave him another quick jolt, then went in pursuit of Darryl.

  His trail of ruined vegetation made him easy to find. Jack followed as he skirted the lake along its west side, then passed behind the Delacorte. But instead of continuing uptown after clearing the theater, he stopped and looked around until his gaze fixed on something to his right.

  He said, “Mother,” and began to move in that direction.

  Alarmed, Jack ran up behind him and scanned the area around the Turtle Pond. He let out a shout when he recognized two figures sitting on the grass.

  17

  “No!”

  The raw emotion in the shout grabbed Weezy’s attention. Something familiar about the voice too. She looked up and saw a scary-looking guy striding straight for them along the water’s edge. His gaze seemed fixed just over her shoulder—at the Lady.

  And then someone ran up behind him carrying a long club—no, a five-foot deadwood branch, thicker than a baseball bat. She didn’t recognize his rage-contorted face at first, then—

  “Jack!”

  Without a word of warning he swung the branch against the stranger’s back. It landed with a loud thunk! that sent him stumbling ahead.

  “Weezy!” Jack shouted. “Get her out of here!”

  “Whatever is Jack doing?” the Lady said.

  Weezy scrambled to her feet.

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure he had a very good reason for attacking that man.”

  “What man?”

  Weezy turned to her. She was staring at Jack and obviously saw him, but . . .

  “The man in the dirty work shirt.” She pointed. “Can’t you see him? He’s right there.”

  The Lady shook her head. “No. I see Jack swinging a dead branch.”

  The dog sensed something. He was on his three legs, baring his teeth as the fur rose along his back.

  Weezy turned back in time to see Jack thrust the branch between the stranger’s legs. The man pitched forward onto his hands and knees. Weezy jumped as she saw the wet ground near the water erupt in steam and seem to dissolve where his palms landed.

  “Ohmygod!”

  “What just happened there?” the Lady said.

  At least she’d seen that. And then Weezy remembered a remark she’d made earlier.

  . . . certain doings involving the Otherness are hidden from me . . .

  This strange man was somehow connected to the Otherness. That had to be it. Maybe he had something to do with the Fhinntmanchca.

  As the man pushed himself back to his feet, Jack swung the branch again, this time at his head, but the end dissolved in a puff of smoke where it made contact. The man seemed oblivious. He straightened and started toward them again.

  Weezy tugged the Lady to her feet. “We’ve got to get away!”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Look,” she said, pointing to the dog who had placed himself between the Lady and the stranger. “He does.”

  Weezy couldn’t tell if the dog could see him or simply sensed a threat. She looked around. People had stopped what they were doing and turned to stare. A couple of men were hurrying over, probably coming to help the man Jack was attacking.

  She turned back and gasped when she saw the pistol in Jack’s hand.

  He’d positioned himself with the man between him and the pond. He raised the pistol in a two-handed grip and fired. People all around began to scream and run. The approaching men did about-faces and ran to join the fleeing crowd.

  Weezy held her ears as Jack pumped one bullet after another, at least a dozen, in rapid succession into the stranger. She saw holes appear in his work shirt, but instead of blood, only small gray wisps of smoke puffed out. The man barely seemed to notice. She saw Jack step closer, raise the pistol, and fire twice into the side of the man’s head. The bullets disappeared into two puffs of smoke as soon as they contacted his scalp. The man didn’t even break stride. It seemed whatever contacted his skin dissolved.

  With a cry of rage, Jack tossed the pistol aside and picked up the branch again. Holding it like a medieval knight might a lance, he charged the man and rammed it into his side. This knocked him off balance but he did not go down. As Jack kept jabbing the branch into the man’s flank, pushing him toward the water, the dog let out a howl and attacked.

  Whether he could see the stranger or not, Weezy couldn’t be sure, but even if not, the way Jack was batting at him gave a pretty clear indication of where the threat lay.

  “No!” Weezy screamed as the dog launched himself into the air, jaws agape, ready to bite. “Don’t!”

  The dog’s teeth sank into the man’s chest and the front of his head exploded in a red mist just as Jack rammed another blow to the left ribs with the branch. The combination of forces pushed the man off balance and he staggered to his right and tumbled into the pond.

  The water exploded into jets of steam, shooting high and wide, its roiling billows blotting out the man and the pond and even the castle.

  “Oh, no!” the Lady cried, rushing toward where the dog lay on its side on the grass. “What happened? What happened?”

  Weezy grabbed her arm. “You can’t stay here!”

  She pulled free and knelt by the dog’s limp form. His jaws were gone, his eyes too. What was left of his head and the base of his tongue weren’t bleeding. It looked as if the flesh had fused. His gullet was still open and his chest rose and fell—still alive but just barely.

  “What happened?”

  The pond was still billowing steam like a boiling cauldron, enveloping Jack where he stood at the water’s edge.

  “The Fhinntmanchca!” he called from within the fog. “That guy was the Fhinntmanchca. He was here to kill you. You’ve got to get as far away as possible.”

  “Yes!” Weezy cried. “Listen to Jack.”

  “Not without him.” She slipped her arms beneath the dog. “We stay together—always.”

  Weezy reached to help her. “Here, then. Let me—”

  “No.” The Lady shook her head as she rose with the limp form in her arms. “It can be only me. I—”

  She heard Jack shout, “No!” as a figure in tattered clothing lunged from the fog with open arms.

  “Mother!”

  He threw his arms around the Lady and the dog in a needy embrace and the world exploded into darkness—a silent blast of anti-light that lasted only a heartbeat or two. No blast effect, no shock wave, but Weezy felt it suck the heart and heat out of her.

  And then it was gone, letting the daylight return. Weezy blinked in the glare like someone who’d just spent days in a cave. When her eyes adjusted and she could see again, she cried out her loss.

  The Lady was gone.

  18

  From his place on the rooftop, Rasalom heard the silent blast and raised his arms toward the vault of the sky, not in supplication, but in triumph.

  Done.


  She was gone. He could sense her absence. The Fhinntmanchca had done its job. Opus Omega had finally yielded fruit, though not in the originally intended manner. All those millennia of flogging generation after generation of the Septimus Order to keep setting those pillars, only to learn that they could not complete it. The Orsa had been the fail-safe, and that was why it had had to be secured no matter what the risks.

  He had thought the Lady dead once before, when that little would-be usurper of his name had set the chew wasps on her. No one had been more surprised than he—except perhaps the Lady herself—when it appeared she had succeeded. The petty pretender had had no idea what she was doing, and only a unique alliance of circumstances had allowed her the means.

  But she had merely appeared to succeed, for the Lady had reappeared elsewhere, wounded but alive.

  Not this time.

  The Fhinntmanchca existed solely for this task, and it had succeeded.

  Now the Enemy will see this world as non-sentient and thus without value. It will turn away and devote its attentions to other worlds.

  Your time has just ended, Glaeken, and mine is about to begin.

  He wondered at his subdued feelings. Where was the exuberance, the joy, the ecstasy of victory after such a prolonged conflict?

  Well, that would come.

  He began planning his next moves. The first was a minor matter: dispose of that noisome girl and her unborn child. The child might have proved useful had the Fhinntmanchca failed. But now that the Lady was gone, he had no use for it; it might even prove a liability. Eliminating liabilities had been his credo since the First Age. It had served him well through the millennia. No sense in changing tactics now.

  Dispose of her, then go to the mountain to initiate the Change. But first, the power.

  He waited for the surge as the Enemy vacated—power to begin the Change—in himself and in the world around him.

  But he felt nothing.

  No . . . that was not right. He did feel something, a growing sensation in the back of his mind, slowly spreading across it. Strangely familiar.

  It couldn’t be . . . no . . . no . . .

  “NO!”