by John Purcell
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
An hour later, we were well on our way to the John Phillip Sousa Bridge, hurrying along Pennsylvania Avenue SE. There wasn’t any rush, but the Three seemed propelled by nervous energy, half excited, half anxious.
Luma, Bim and I strode down the middle of the street, side-by-side, but Dogan hung back a few paces, swatting the air with his new baseball bat. He’d gotten it at the scavenger hunt, swapping his baseball for it. Before we left, I double-checked his backpack, to make sure he hadn’t swapped away the flashlight or the slingshot and ball bearings, which we might need.
Moto had apparently decided to act as scout. She trotted about a block ahead of us, alert to danger of any sort. The trip, however, proved uneventful, and we arrived at the foot of the bridge fifteen minutes early.
The rim of the Dome was anchored squarely in the Anacostia River, as it had been in the Potomac, creating a dam. The span we crossed passed above the dry riverbed, now home to blue weeds and scrub brush. Up ahead, I could see an archway similar to the one we’d entered through, but half the size and free of statues.
Viewed from within the Dome, the sky Outside appeared muddy brown in color. As we neared the arch and our eyes began to adjust to daylight, the color changed to deep maroon. Then thunder rumbled and the heavens opened and rain poured down in sheets.
I thought of Humphrey and Lollipop, Outside somewhere, on their way to pick us up. I hoped they had taken cover. We stood inside the archway and watched it pour. The rain would delay our departure, but not enough to affect our plans. I knew firsthand how fast Lollipop could run.
The downpour only lasted a few minutes, and then the maroon clouds began to disperse, revealing patches of orange sky. Soon, the sun was blazing down again. Looking south over Route 295, I caught a flash of pink and pointed it out to the Three. We watched Humphrey and his moon buggy hurtle northward, along the moss-covered parkway.
Humphrey took the turn onto his side of the bridge, flew up to the arch, and made a wide U-turn.
He called to us over his shoulder. “Baltimore next!”
As the Three were climbing onto the moon buggy, I noticed a large fly buzzing around Lollipop’s hindquarters. This was odd for a number of reasons. To begin with, I had yet to see a single insect Outside. The fly landed on Lollipop’s flank and I stepped over for a closer look.
It had four segmented legs, a single green eye, and oval shaped, wire mesh wings. I pointed the fly out to Humphrey and asked him what it was.
He glanced at it. “SpyClops.”
“Queen Scarlett made that?”
“Rule of thumb. If it flies through the air, it’s hers.”
“What does it do?”
“Itty bitty spy drone.”
I suspected as much. I snatched it up, imprisoning it inside my fist. It didn’t seem very fast or very smart.
Moto was still waiting her turn to climb aboard, so I called her over and opened her storage compartment. I tossed in the SpyClops, locking it inside. This particular drone wouldn’t see where we were going, but the damage was already done. Queen Scarlett knew we were leaving DC.
We rode in the same configuration as before. The Three shared the seat, Moto curled up underneath it, and I stood behind it. It was just as hot as yesterday and the Three would have gladly opened their umbrellas, but Lollipop was charging along at 30 mph. The rushing air did nothing to cool us.
Route 295 followed the Anacostia River for a few miles, then veered off toward Baltimore. The surrounding landscape had been annihilated by windstorms. Almost every structure had been leveled, including brick and concrete high-rises. As we traveled north, though, the destruction grew less severe. By the time we crossed over Route 495, houses and buildings were more-or-less intact, windowpanes aside.
Shortly after that, a second SpyClops picked up our trail. It buzzed us from behind and then climbed up above the treetops. As I watched it make a wide arc, looping around to buzz us again, I could see that its flight path was entirely predictable.
I asked Dogan for his slingshot and ball bearings. By the time the SpyClops came at us again, from the front, I was loaded and ready. Its path was so direct that it seemed to hang in the air. The ball bearing shattered its eye and tore through its body lengthwise, reducing it to fragments.
Unfortunately, it had already completed its mission, locating us for its companions, who were now appearing in the northern sky, directly above the parkway. Even at 10X, they were black specks. At 20X, they were still difficult to identify, but they were definitely larger than the SpyClops, black blobs about the size of baseballs, dangling from wide, papery wings.
They were gliding toward us at a leisurely pace, but we were charging at them at 30 mph. I considered stopping to take cover and ruled it out. We were cutting through a deep forest and red flowers lined both sides of the parkway. Queen Scarlett had chosen to attack us here for that very reason.
But attack us with what? I increased magnification to 50X. The black blobs, it turned out, weren’t perfectly spherical. They were oblong, with a splotch of red in the center. I counted four legs on either side, long, spindly legs that clawed the air. In the center of all this was a face: four pairs of eyes and fangs for a mouth.
I had only seen photographs of them in the Extinction Catalogs, but the creatures coming for us were definitely spiders. Queen Scarlett had enlarged them and given them wings and no doubt made their venom deadly.
The spiders wouldn’t be in range of the slingshot for another minute. I called out to Humphrey to stop, which bought us a little extra time.
I found it difficult to tell Luma what was on the way. She isn’t scared of much, but her greatest fear is spiders. She was spooked by the close-ups she’d seen, and the faces haunt her dreams. Her only solace is the fact that spiders no longer exist.
At first, she wouldn’t accept it. “You’re telling me that great big spiders, great big flying spiders, are headed this way?”
When I pointed them out, she said, “Those could be anything! They could be birds!”
“I’m sorry, Luma. There are no birds Outside.”
Her face was growing pale.
I said, “It’s okay.”
“No, Teo! It is definitely not okay!”
“Don’t worry, I’m going to shoot them down before they get here. Just in case, you and Bim and Dogan open your umbrellas and pull your feet up onto the seat. If any spiders get past me, they’ll bounce off your umbrellas. Moto will stay underneath the seat. If any land down there, she’ll kill them before they can get to you.”
“What about Humphrey?”
Humphrey leaned over and plucked the inverted silver umbrella from its socket. Turning it right side up, he held it over his head, saying, “I’m good.”
It looked clownishly small.
Dogan jumped to his feet and thrust his umbrella at Humphrey. “Here, take mine! I don’t need it!”
Luma looked shocked. “Dogan, are you crazy?”
Dogan picked up his baseball bat. “You think I’m going to hide under an umbrella when spiders are raining down?”
I said, “Dogan, I’m pretty sure they’re poisonous. One bite could kill you.”
I could see the fear in his eyes, but he stood his ground. “It’ll be just like batting practice! Besides, what makes you so sure you can get them all?”
I wasn’t sure, but it seemed foolish to let Dogan risk his life. I had the impulse to step over and knock him unconscious with my fists. This is exactly what Shane had done in order to save his friend’s life. That didn’t make it a good idea, but instead of dismissing it I stood there, wasting precious time, imagining what it would be like to punch Dogan in the face.
I forced myself back to the present. “Okay, here’s the plan. We’re going to make a run for the next exit. It’s about two mile
s up ahead. Once we’re off the highway, we can find shelter. I’ll cover Humphrey with the slingshot from back here. Dogan will stay right where he is, covering Luma and Bim. Moto will deal with any spiders that make it to the floor. Okay?”
Everyone nodded.
“Okay, umbrellas up! Let’s go!”
Humphrey coaxed Lollipop from walk to trot to canter to full gallop. Dogan leaned into the wind, baseball bat ready on his shoulder. Bim was sitting cross-legged on the seat, umbrella casually braced, apparently unconcerned. Luma clutched her umbrella handle with white knuckles, her knees drawn up to her chest and her face buried in them. The nape of her neck looked terribly vulnerable.
I realized I couldn’t afford to fish ball bearings from the pouch one at a time. I poured them into my mouth.
The first spider swooped down, on a collision course with Humphrey. The ball bearing I fired hit the red splotch dead center, tearing away the spider’s abdomen and causing it to spin off to the side.
After a brief lull, a second spider dropped from the sky, headed right for the moon buggy. Before Dogan could even raise his bat, I sent a ball bearing through its face. It took a nosedive and got churned under Lollipop’s hooves.
The next two spiders arrived at almost the same time. Reloading quickly, I shot them both down, but it was a close call. Looking to the horizon, I could see a long line of spiders, gliding together in clusters, with no end in sight. I went to 2X and started trying to hit them further out. I made some successful shots, but also missed a few.
On the positive side, the spiders didn’t seem capable of evasive action. But they were starting to arrive in groups of three and four, and we were still a mile and a half from the exit.
Four spiders came in together and Dogan got his first chance at bat. I took out two in the air, one bounced harmlessly off Humphrey’s umbrella and Dogan smacked the last one into the trees.
Then two came in from the left and three from the right. I managed to shoot down one of the two, and two of the other three, but both remaining spiders swooped at Dogan. He swung right-handed, then left-handed, bashing them away in opposite directions.
He turned to me, grinning, a big mistake. A single spider came in low, about at his calves. With my mouth full of ball bearings, all I could do was point, much too late.
Moto shot out from beneath the seat, intercepted the spider, and tossed it under the moon buggy’s wheels. When Dogan saw this, his grin disappeared and faced forward again.
With a mile to go to the exit, I made a difficult choice. The spiders were coming in so fast that I had to stop covering Humphrey and focus all my attention on Dogan. At least Humphrey’s umbrella was doing its job. The spiders that bounced off it lost momentum and fell away.
Meanwhile, Dogan’s bat was in constant motion. His reflexes were a wonder to behold, but I was too busy firing ball bearings to pay much attention. Keeping up wasn’t my only problem. I was also running low on ammunition.
Moto was doing everything in her power to defend Dogan’s legs, dashing around and through them, bashing away spiders with her fists. I began resorting to fists myself, deflecting spiders that had made it past the ball bearings and the bat. No one had been bitten yet, but we were on a downward spiral. The more spiders I had to punch, the fewer shots I could get off, and Dogan's strength was ebbing away.
We reached the exit at last and veered off the parkway to the south, forcing the spiders to change course. They were behind us now, and Lollipop was doing her best to outrun them. Still, the sky was thick with spiders. We desperately needed shelter.
As the exit ramp merged onto Route 198, a building appeared unexpectedly on our right. By the time I saw it, we were already past it, but the parking lot entrance was up ahead. I called out to Humphrey to turn into it. He pulled hard on Lollipop’s reins, but we were still traveling too fast going into the turn. The moon buggy whipped sideways, skidding across the moss and swinging us almost even with Lollipop.
This sudden change of direction got us out from under the closest wave of spiders, but we were now headed back the way we came, directly into the path of the next wave. As Lollipop got the buggy straightened out behind her, dozens of spiders swooped in over the treetops, angling toward us.
Lollipop whisked us up to the entrance. Miraculously, the doors were standing open. Moving as one, we abandoned the moon buggy and fled inside, just as the spiders reached the ground. We managed to swing the doors shut before any made it to the threshold.
I’d studied the building as we’d passed it. Its façade was made almost entirely of glass. Large rectangular windowpanes ran from the ground all the way up to the building’s roof. It was hard to imagine how they’d survived all the windstorms. A sign above the entrance displayed an insignia done in chrome, two jagged lines enclosed in a circle.
The interior, we now discovered, was a single, cavernous room. We all went to the windows to watch the spiders rain down.
Some of them began crashing against the windowpanes. At first, I thought they were continuing their attack, but I quickly realized that stupidity was the cause. They didn’t understand glass. They would slam into the windowpanes and plummet to the ground. Their papery wings, which seemed quite brittle, did little to slow their fall. Sometimes their abdomens would burst against the glass on impact. If not, they burst when they hit the ground.
The spiders that tried to land directly on the parking lot didn’t fare any better. They came in too fast and tumbled when they hit, wings crumbling and legs snapping off. The injured spiders used their remaining legs to no avail, dragging themselves in circles.
Luma watched this with a pained expression. “What’s wrong with them?”
Bim said, “Queen Scarlett made them too big. Above a certain size, their design doesn’t work.”
I repeated Bim’s words.
She said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel sorry for them.”
Dogan snorted. “I don’t!”
Luma turned to Bim. “What’s going to happen to them?”
Bim said, “Most of them died when they hit the ground. The rest will bake to death in the sun.”
As I repeated Bim’s words, I could see he was right. Many of the spiders had stopped moving. The others were flailing their legs, trying in vain to crawl into the shade.
I said, “In about 15 minutes, I think we can get going again.”
Humphrey said, “Nap time,” and turned away from the windows, looking for a place to lie down.
I turned my attention to our surroundings. The original purpose of the building wasn’t clear to me, but it had been turned into some sort of meeting hall. Rows of sofas, mismatched and legless, faced the back of the room. It took me a moment to realize they weren’t sofas at all. Someone had salvaged the rear seats from dozens of different automobiles and lined them up on the floor.
Humphrey wandered up the center aisle, looking for the most comfortable one. When he found a seat to his liking, he stretched out on it and pulled his cap down over his eyes.
The rows ended near the rear wall, at a short flight of stairs that led up to a stage. This space was dominated by an enormous cube made of crushed scrap metal. Atop the cube lay a thick book, open to the middle.
Above the stage, a white bed sheet had been tacked to the wall. Written on this, in orange paint, was a list of some sort, comprised of ten lines. It read:
Thou shalt not have other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make graven images.
Thou shalt not take up the name of thy God in vain.
Remember the day of the Sabbath to hallow it.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear against thy neighbor vain witness.
Thou shalt not covet the wife of thy neighbor, or his house, or his field.
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I studied this list for a time, puzzling out the unfamiliar words. Obviously, thou meant the same thing as you. The meaning of covet wasn’t so obvious, but I decided it meant want or desire. I couldn’t make any sense out of adultery. As for God, it was a word rarely spoken in Dome Nine, for fear of punishment. The concept behind it had always been unclear to me.
But the overall meaning of the list was plain enough: it was a set of rules for life itself. It was a code.
The rules seemed to be listed in no particular order. I wasn’t sure what graven images were, but I didn’t see how making them could possibly be worse than killing. It seemed to me that Thou shalt not kill should have been either first on the list, or last. Instead, it was buried somewhere in the middle, as if to downplay its importance.
Still, it was a lot better than no code at all. I wondered who had come up with it and why they had posted it in this building. Did people gather here to study it?
Bim appeared at my side.
I pointed to the list. “What do you make of that?”
“Those are the Ten Commandments, Teo.”
I looked up “Ten Commandments”: In the Bible, the summary of divine law given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. They have a paramount place in the ethical system of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
I looked up “Bible”: Name used by Christians for their Scriptures. The traditional Christian view of the Bible is that it was all written under the guidance of God and that it is, therefore, all true, literally or under the veil of allegory.
The article continued on at great length about the Bible’s origins, which I wouldn’t have been able to follow without looking up dozens of new words. Hofmann had implied that Christianity was complicated, and I decided to drop the whole subject right there.
I turned around. Luma was still at the front windows, watching the spiders, her shoulders slumped. Dogan had stepped away and was busy taking pointless practice swings with his bat.
Bim had turned around with me. He gestured toward the windows.
“Teo, somebody’s coming this way.”
We walked over to where Luma was standing. A young girl, about Luma’s age, was walking east along Route 198. Luma hadn’t noticed her yet because the girl was quite far off. At 2X, I could see she was wearing a simple white dress and sandals. To my surprise, she was carrying an ax.
She held it across her chest, gripping the handle with both hands. Despite its size, she didn’t seem to be struggling with it. She walked along calmly, looking left and right.
If she hadn’t had the ax, I might have been more concerned for her safety. But the spiders no longer posed much of a threat to anyone, and there were only a few scattered on the roadway ahead of her, most of them dead. If anything, she was a threat to them.
Luma didn’t see it that way. As soon as she noticed the girl, she rose up in alarm. “Oh my gosh! Teo, there’s a girl out there!” She grabbed my arm, pointing. “She’s headed straight for those spiders! You’ve got to stop her!”
I looked at Bim.
He said, “It’s simpler if you just go.”
There were so many spiders on the parking lot that I couldn’t help crushing some underfoot as I hurried across. Their abdomens burst open with a quiet pop.
By the time I reached the girl, she was already standing over one of the spiders, watching it try to drag itself off the road. She looked up at me as I approached, her expression troubled.
I said, “Hi.”
She didn’t smile. “Hi.”
“My name is Teo.”
“I’m Louisa. Will you help me kill these spiders?”
I didn’t see the point. “Why? They’re already dying.”
“Because I can’t stand to see them suffer like this.”
“But they’ll be dead soon enough.”
She shook her head. “I’ve seen them last for hours.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
I said, “How do you kill them?”
Louisa knelt down and pointed at the spider’s head, almost touching it. “This is the cephalothorax. Queen Scarlett had to make it bigger so she could grow wings there. She should have strengthened their legs to handle the extra weight, but she didn’t. That’s why they can barely walk.” She pointed to the rear. “This is the abdomen. This spot, where it joins the cephalothorax, is called the pedicel. She should have strengthened that, too, but she didn’t, which makes it easy to cut them apart. Watch.”
She positioned the ax blade and let it drop, splitting the sections in two, killing the spider instantly.
She stood up and let out a sigh. “That’s all there is to it.”
“How do you know so much about spiders?”
“My dad’s a scientist. Will you please help me kill them?”
“You want to end their suffering as quickly as possible.”
“Yes.”
“May I borrow your ax?”
She passed it to me. All the axes I’d seen in Dome Nine had handles made of wood. This ax seemed to be cast from a single piece of steel, head and handle both. I ran my thumb along the edge of the blade. It was razor sharp.
I said, “I should warn you, I move very fast because I’m an android.”
Louisa nodded, not looking particularly surprised.
There were 242 spiders in all, 83 still showing signs of life. I worked my way toward the building, chopping as I went, completing the task at the entrance, where the spiders were thickest.
When I finished, Louisa was still standing in the road. I jogged over to her.
She smiled for the first time. “Thank you. I feel better now.”
“Did you come out here just to kill them?”
“No. I was on my way to afternoon prayers. When I saw them coming down, I went back for an ax.”
I offered it to her but she shook her head, saying, “Keep it.”
“Why?”
“I’m giving it to you. I think you’re supposed to have it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I just have this feeling.”
“Don’t you need it yourself?”
She shook her head again. “Not really. We have plenty of axes.”
“Who does? Your clan?”
“Yes.”
“Which clan is that?”
“The Walmart Clan. We live just down the road, on the other side of 295. That’s why we chose this place for our temple.”
The word “temple” brought the Oracle instantly to mind.
A gathering at the ancestral temple.
Trouble.
I wanted to be sure. “This building is a temple?”
“Yes, Temple Ezekiel. Our clan has been using it for 82 years.”
“You come here in the afternoon to pray?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
Louisa looked surprised. “Every day.”
“You come here every single day?”
“Three times, actually. Morning, afternoon and evening.”
“Your clan comes here three times a day?”
She shook her head, scowling. “I’m not talking about the whole clan. They only come on Saturdays. I’m just talking about myself.”
“You come here on your own?”
“Yes.”
“No one else comes with you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Most of the people in my clan are in their seventies or eighties, and the rest are even older. My mom is the youngest and she’s seventy-one.”
“What about the other children?”
“There aren’t any other children.”
“You’re the only child in the entire clan?”
“Yes.”
“How is that possible?”
Louisa shrugged. “My dad talked everyone out of having kids.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Becau
se the world is coming to an end.”
At first I thought this might be a joke, but her expression was somber.
I said, “What are you talking about?”
“When the GR started pumping the smog cloud into orbit, my dad did the math. The temperature is rising exponentially now. In thirty years, the oceans at the Equator will begin to boil.”
“How can you be sure?”
“My dad’s prediction was fifty years. His numbers were too optimistic.”
“But there must be some way to reverse it.”
“I’ve been praying to God three times a day, ever since I can remember. My mom says that’s our best hope.”
This didn’t make much sense to me. I was trying to come up with a reply when Humphrey stepped out of the building. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “All aboard!”
I turned back to Louisa. “I’m sorry, we have to get going now. May I walk you to the temple?”
I offered her my arm and she took it. As we approached the entrance, she noticed Lollipop for the first time and released me, hurrying over for a closer look.
While she talked with Humphrey, I used the ax to sweep the dead spiders off the moon buggy and clear a path for the Three. I found one last surviving spider under the seat. Its abdomen had burst open but its legs were still flailing. I chopped it in two and swept it away.
