by William Oday
He hated winters in the big city. His bare hands and feet had been tingling numb for days. The heat of the crowd was all he could afford. But the warmth of this tight squeeze wasn’t the only benefit. Mixing with the masses had another advantage.
It made pinching a wallet easier.
And he needed all the help he could get. While he was a better pickpocket than most of the other urchins he’d come across, winter always made the profession a challenge.
It was the freezing wind that did it. It made his hands feel thick and clumsy—two things that made the job almost impossible. Add to that the fact that his bare feet felt like blocks of ice and he couldn’t trust them to run right if a mark caught on and got physical or whistled for the cops.
The boy bumped through the crowd looking for the right opportunity. Long, dark wool jackets surrounded him. There would be an opening if he just kept moving, kept waiting for it. He couldn’t afford a mistake.
Even if his feet weren’t half-frozen, he couldn’t have run. He just didn’t have the energy. A mistake would mean getting collared. And getting collared would mean a beating.
Or worse.
New York City’s finest took a dim view of street rats like him. And they used every opportunity to make their feelings known. A week ago, they’d beaten a kid to death for trying to steal carrots from the local grocer. There were supposed to be laws against that kind of thing, but laws only protected rich people. Street rats protected themselves or they didn’t live long.
The boy had survived many winters, but the emaciated limbs hanging from his bony torso suggested that streak wasn’t likely to last much longer.
He needed food.
Something more than the rotten scraps he occasionally found in trash bins. Something more than the infrequent feasts when he landed a decent score.
And so he’d moved to a new street. One with more people and possibilities. Of course, there were always dangers entering new turf, but he’d run out of options. He wasn’t inclined to take unnecessary risks when simple survival already required so many necessary ones. He’d been holed up for days and would’ve stayed put, but the clawing beast in his gut drove him half-mad with hunger.
There came a point when the possibility of death by beating was better than the certainty by starvation.
He’d already reached that point many times this winter and he would again if this attempt didn’t kill him.
Weaving through the crowd, he patted coat pockets with fingers that burned like fire now that feeling had returned. He patted another and the pocket contained something. Something promising. But the flap was buttoned down and his stiff fingers weren’t all that useful yet.
He was considering how to approach the job when the burly man turned and spotted him. The man looked down at the boy and both knew the score in an instant.
The boy tried to dodge into a gap but the burly man caught him with a hammer blow to the head before he could get away.
The thump sent a jolt of pain through the boy’s shoulders and back. His legs almost gave out but he managed to dive between two dark coats and leave the burly man behind. In a daze, he hurried through more coats, trying to put distance between himself and another crippling punch.
He pushed through a gap and stumbled into an open pocket at the front of the crowd. The newsstand owner took money with one hand and handed out copies of The New York Times with the other. The edition pinned to the stand had a big headline in black ink.
KENNEDY IS KILLED BY SNIPER
AS HE RIDES IN CAR IN DALLAS
It had a picture of the president and the story below.
The boy couldn’t have cared less. The president had never done anything for him. The president had never put food in his hands or boots on his feet. He was just another rich person in a far off land called Washington who made laws for other rich people and talked about even more far off lands like the moon.
If this country could spend so much money trying to put a man on the moon, why couldn’t it spend a few cents to put a sandwich in his hand?
New York City was like that. Too many people all trying to grab their share and more before someone else could get it. They were rats fighting to chew off an ever-larger piece of the cheese.
The arriving and departing eddy of bodies swept him sideways to the next spot in line. A magazine with Elvis on the front captured his attention. The king of rock and roll had glorious sideburns. Perhaps they were the mark of a king.
The crowd shifted him over in front of the newspaper seller.
“Hey, kid!”
The boy looked up.
“You buying?”
The boy shook his head.
“Big surprise. Get lost, or else!”
The boy didn’t have to guess at what the or else might mean. He slipped back into the crowd, rubbing his hands together and blowing warmer air from his lungs over them.
If he didn’t score something solid today, he was certain he wouldn’t make it through another freezing night.
2
He stumbled through the crowd a while longer, letting the press of bodies move him where it might, trusting to fate that the right opportunity would present itself eventually. As he drifted, he curled and uncurled his fingers hoping to get more feeling back into them before that moment arrived.
Something soft brushed by. It tickled the fine hairs on his bare arm. A black coat. Finer and softer than the usual rough wool. An understated sign of wealth that shone like a spotlight for people in his profession. He gently bumped a shoulder against the man’s coat pocket and felt a distinct bulge.
A magical bulge that promised an end to the agony of his body eating itself.
He winced as his stomach clenched tighter, anticipating the meal that was not yet assured. The boy followed the mark through the crowd, but never too closely. Now that the target was set, he didn’t want to blow it by tripping on the mark’s heels. A successful pick was as much about timing as technique. And both were required if you wanted to walk away with your head intact.
Between two dark coats, he caught a glimpse of another filthy, young face. One not so different from his own. He’d seen the older boy around a number of times and had thus far managed to avoid him. And that was the way he intended to keep it. The older boy was a good foot taller than him and, while skinny, had a lean frame that hinted at a dangerous strength.
It wasn’t uncommon for fights to break out between kids living on the street. Over resources. Over turf. Over pride. Over nothing. And, as often as not, one of the parties involved ended up dead.
The boy avoided other urchins wherever possible. He simply didn’t have the size or strength to defend himself. Running was the only option. It had worked thus far.
He ducked and lost sight of the taller boy as he continued trailing behind the rich man. Trailing and waiting for the right moment.
The rich man bought a paper and then began pushing his way out of the crowd.
The boy followed.
The rich man neared the edge of the crowd.
The boy knew all would be lost the instant the man broke free of the mass. It was the chaos of the accidental jostling that covered the execution of the intended one.
It was now or never.
He dodged between two coats and bumped into the rich man. As their bodies collided, the boy slipped a hand inside the long coat. He trailed down the silky lining and parted the interior pocket.
His fingers dipped lower and pinched around a soft, leather wallet. He lifted his hand. His heart pounded in his ears as the wallet pulled free.
He had it.
Who knew how much money a man like that carried around? It might be enough to eat for a month!
The boy completed the pick with the wallet gripped tightly in his hand. He turned to disappear into the crowd when plush wool fabric wrapped around his neck and drew tight. The arm inside the fabric bulged with muscle. A large hand wrapped over his hand holding the wallet. The grip closed tight, crushing his f
ingers into a ball.
The boy panicked and kicked out but his limbs were so weak and the choking arm so strong.
A breathy voice whispered in his ear.
“Thinking I’m an easy mark, eh? I’ll show you easy.”
The man dragged the boy free of the crowd. The boy struggled to break loose but it was no use. The man pulled him into a nearby alley and deeper into its darkness. He slammed the boy against the brick wall and then slammed a fist into his gut.
The boy doubled over, crying out to anyone that would listen.
No one did.
“You filthy scum! Try to pinch me?”
Blows rained down on the boy until he collapsed into a stream of sewage. He couldn’t smell it through the blood filling his nose. He curled into a ball and covered up as the man continued to kick and stomp.
Eventually, the beating stopped.
The boy peeked out, wondering if he’d died. But while the beating had stopped, the agony had not. He was still alive.
The man bent over, holding his knees, breathing hard. He caught the boy’s gaze and grinned wickedly. His eyes lit up.
“We’re not done yet, boy. You’re not going to leave this alley.”
The boy noticed movement behind the rich man. It looked like a flickering shadow at first.
The shadow emerged behind the rich man. The older boy. The dangerous looking one he’d succeeded in avoiding.
Well, it was over. Perhaps they would take turns beating him to death. Maybe that would make it end faster, at least.
The tall boy gazed down at him, at the bloodied mess curled on the ground. There was no softness in his eyes. No pity. He drew a long, thin shadow from inside his shabby coat. The razor edge glinted as it caught the light.
The rich man spat on the injured boy and snarled. “What say we finish this?”
It wasn’t a question.
The tall boy stepped to his side and the long, thin shadow in his hand pierced the rich man’s neck. The shadow sliced sideways and parted the neck into a grisly smile.
Blood spilled down the man’s coat as he clutched at the gaping wound in shock. He collapsed in a heap. Blood poured out of his neck, pooling first and then running through the cracks between the uneven cobblestones.
The tall boy kicked the man over onto his back. He rifled through the man’s pockets and found the wallet. He opened it and pulled out a huge wad of bills. He snapped through the stack and grinned. He stepped on the dying man’s chest, pulled the boy up to a sit and leaned him against the brick wall.
“This is my street. I should kill you to send a message.”
The boy’s head hung low, because it was too painful to lift. Breathing was agony. Maybe death would be better. Probably.
“Do you want to die?”
The tall boy lifted his chin, not gently, and gazed hard into his eyes.
“Do you want to die?”
As easy as it would’ve been, as preferable to the unending misery that was all he could remember, yet he wanted to live. Something inside raged to take one more breath.
He shook his head.
“Then you work for me now. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded.
The tall boy slipped the razor shadow under the boy’s neck. The blade pressed a hard line into his throat.
“I have only one rule. Absolute loyalty. Break that and you’ll wish this suit killed you.”
The boy nodded.
The tall boy sifted through the wallet and pulled out a coin. He turned it from side to side.
“Must be foreign. Keep it.”
He flipped the coin into the boy’s lap and then dropped the empty wallet on the sputtering man’s chest. He wiped the steel shadow clean on the rich man’s fine wool coat. He stood and gazed down at the boy.
“Loyalty. Unquestioned and absolute.”
He turned and strode away.
3
The Present Day
A Week After the Outbreak
Los Angeles, California
DR. ANTON RESHENKO gazed out of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the seventy-third floor of the Milagro Tower. He barely registered the startling changes of the City of Angels. Urban centers around the world had undergone similar transformations. Movies had once been the region’s most famous export.
No longer.
The virus had spread with astonishing speed, killing off most of the world’s population. He couldn’t have been a prouder father.
Like a modern Mount Olympus, the cylinder of glass and white concrete raised him into the heavens. The crown of the building had the Milagro name in big, block letters that shone at night, even now when few had power.
It truly was a miracle.
Rather, he was the miracle.
Like Jesus with the merchants and the moneylenders, Anton had swept the disease from the temple and laid the foundation for a glorious future.
His thoughts soared above the inconsequential happenings and struggles of those bound to the surface below. All of them but one. The one that tethered him to mortality. He abhorred weakness in others and he found it no less offensive in himself. She was the single off flavor in his grand achievement.
How he longed to pluck her out and, at last, be free of petty emotion. But he could not. She was too much like her mother.
He gazed out over the Pacific Ocean to the west and experienced a certain kinship, a soulful resonance, with explorers from bygone days.
Surely, they felt both fear and delight at the prospect of sailing into the unknown, into a future of unlimited potential.
He felt the same way.
After centuries of increasingly imbecilic decision-making, after a continual weakening of the human mind through dependence and distraction, profound change had finally arrived. And he was the spark that had lit the fire from which a new and better world would emerge.
To wield such power was gratifying.
In the left pocket of his rumpled pants, Anton rubbed the silver Dirham of Genghis Khan between his thumb and index finger. So deep was his reverie that the pain of the blistered and bleeding flesh went unnoticed.
Objectively, he grasped that some might think his actions were those of a delusional megalomaniac. A villain with a soul so black that archetypal historical villains seemed a shade of gray in comparison.
People regularly cited the evils of Hitler and his campaign that ended the lives of over forty million people. And yet few recalled Genghis Khan, a conqueror who dispatched a similar number. And gallingly, even fewer factored in the period in which each man lived. Khan made his name when the earth held just four-hundred million people. He wiped away ten percent of the planet’s population, whereas Hitler claimed less than two percent.
And Khan did so with the crude and laborious implements of his day. His genius was as breathtaking as it was under-appreciated.
Anton felt a close kinship with the ancient Khan. He often wondered if the infamous Mongol somehow felt the same connection through the ages. As magnificent as Genghis Khan’s achievements were, they were nothing to the changes Anton himself had wrought.
He suspected even the great Khan would sink to his knees in supplication. The knowledge warmed him.
Like no conqueror ever before, Anton had changed the course of humanity’s evolution forever. His bravery and intellect set a new course into a great unknown, one where mankind might reach the greatness that was its birthright.
The same potential it had let drown in an ocean of satisfied complacency.
A voice from behind startled him.
“Do you expect me to just stand here all day?”
The senator’s voice sounded infinitely more weary than it had just a week ago before the change began. It sounded infinitely more pathetic.
Anton turned away from his thoughts as his right hand subconsciously scratched at the growing bald spot in his formerly glorious sideburns. His nose curled as a whiff of old age and frailty wafted from the elderly man. His stomach churned a
s it always did after he’d been thinking of her.
Iridia. His daughter.
The source of his worry.
Her absence was the crack in his heart and mind. The fault line disgusted him. His words flicked like a whip in the senator’s direction.
“What I expect you to do is retrieve my daughter!”
Senator Charles Rawlings pushed his thick-lensed glasses up the bridge of his nose and shook his head.
“I got us here from D.C. And with all the chaos, that was no small feat. Let me remind you!”
“That was four days ago,” Anton answered and then looked around theatrically, “and yet I still do not see my daughter standing next to me.” His cheek itched like fire. He scratched at it for a measure of fleeting relief.
“From what little communications we’ve received,” Rawlings replied, “the command and control structure of the United States of America is a shambles. I’m the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and even I can’t call up a rescue team from nothing.”
Anton rounded the elegant desk of glass and air and confronted the elderly senator. He leaned forward until their eyes were inches apart.
“You were the chairman. Now, you are a useless old man. One for which I have fewer and fewer reasons to keep alive.”
“How dare you!” the old man said. “I brought you on board. Without me, you would be nothing!”
Anton slapped the senator across the face with all of his might. It, perhaps, offended good taste to hit a man of such advanced years, but Anton was in no mood to be challenged just now.
The senator dabbed a crooked finger to his bleeding lip and stared at the small patch of black marble floor that separated them. “We don’t know that she’s still alive. Or, if so, that she’s still like she was.”
Anton’s palm connected again with the slack skin of the senator’s face almost before he considered the act. “Never say that! She’s with a resourceful colleague of Mr. Pike’s.”
He turned to the tall bodyguard standing by the door, stoically looking ahead. “Mr. Pike, what do you say?”
