It was at once utterly fascinating and profoundly disturbing. He was watching, smelling, feeling men afraid for their lives, men desperate to escape the swarm of insects around them. He tasted the adrenaline flooding their veins, veins now feeding hundreds if not thousands of insects.
One man broke and ran toward the water to jump in, but he tripped, and when he tried to rise to his hands and knees, he could not.
The other men tried the same thing, each seeing the water as a way to escape. And, Markovic thought, it might have been. But they would never reach the water, of that he was sure, though it was mere feet away. None of the men seemed able to walk, to move a leg. Their waving, slapping, gesticulating arms slowed, growing heavy.
Markovic sensed a foul odor, a smell so strong and repugnant he instinctively reached to pinch the nose he no longer had. He knew the smell. Sickness. Rot. Decay. Oh, yes, he knew that smell. He’d been in the Navy in the Persian Gulf, and the destroyer he’d served aboard had come across a derelict sailboat, its sail in tatters, the wood bleached white by the relentless, pitiless sun. He had been part of the boarding party. Markovic, then Lieutenant Markovic and armed with a pistol, had pried up a hatch and shone a flashlight down into hell.
Two dozen humans, men and women and babies in arms, lay there. Half at least were dead, and the rest might soon be. They were refugees from the war in Yemen and had contracted cholera from infected water and food. The deck was awash in vomit and diarrhea, but the worst of the stink was decaying flesh. The decaying flesh of people who had been six days dead in 115-degree heat, with no one strong enough to throw them overboard.
This was that same unbearable stink. The odor of putrefaction. The odor of disease and death.
He thought of his insects all returning to him, and in four distinct clouds they rose from the men and flew back to rejoin the swarm.
Somehow Markovic had expected to see the men perhaps pocked with red bite marks. The reality was worse. So very much worse.
Well, Markovic thought grimly, I guess that will be a lesson to anyone who messes with me.
But that did not mean he wanted to stay and watch. He moved away, fast. He kept moving his “legs,” but that was mere habit, for he moved not like a running man, but like a cloud on a stiff breeze, a buzzing mass of death-dealing insects.
Okay, enough, Markovic thought as he reached the relative cover of some pine woods. Time to change back.
He focused his thoughts on his true body, his true self.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, adding urgency to the attempt. By now everyone knew the Rockborn could morph and de-morph at will, but nothing was happening. He had a mental image of himself running into a wall, a tall cinder-block wall. This was not in any of the accounts he’d read or seen on TV. The Rockborn could change back at will. Everyone said so!
Now the fear came at full throttle, irresistible. He tried again, and once again it was like hitting a wall, a wall beyond which there was nothingness.
Death.
He remembered the machine-gun bullets, the ones that had ripped his then-flesh-and-blood body. He remembered thinking he had to be dead, could not possibly be alive and yet . . .
The truth was there, easy to see, yet so awful, so impossibly horrific. . . . Bob Markovic, who always accepted reality and made the most of it, could not bring himself to believe what with dawning terror he knew to be true: he could not change back. His old body, the original Bob Markovic, was dead.
CHAPTER 10
New York, New York
THE ROCKBORN GANG, in their borrowed jet, landed at Teterboro Airport, across the Hudson River from New York City, in New Jersey. The sun was out, though a weak, pale thing compared to the Las Vegas sun, and it was distinctly chilly, just cold enough to turn breath to steam.
“So much for sunbathing by the pool,” Armo muttered as they stepped out onto the stairs. “I’ll miss my cabana.”
Half a dozen photographers and reporters were waiting for them, despite the secrecy they’d hoped to maintain. The shouted questions began the instant the cabin door opened.
“Has the president summoned you?”
“Are you here to save New York?”
“Can you please spell the names of everyone in the Rockborn Gang?”
“I’m just the flight attendant,” Armo said to the assembled media. He moved nimbly aside at the bottom of the stairs, allowing Dekka to step out from behind him.
Better her than me, Armo thought. She has more words.
Dekka stopped on the bottom step and cast a sour look at the assembled media. “Long flight, bad mood, leave us alone.” Then she marched on, aiming for the stretch SUV that was to pick them up, pushing through the crowd like an ocean liner plowing through a wave. The reporters shifted attention to the next person off the plane.
“Cruz! Smile! Look here, smile!”
“You’re being called the hero of Las Vegas. Can you comment?”
“Can you clear up your gender issue for us?”
Cruz froze halfway down the stairs, but Shade squeezed past, grabbed Cruz’s hand, and urged her along. Armo admired the smooth way Shade drew the reporters and cameras around herself. Very smart girl, that Shade. She and Malik, both, way too smart for him, which was a good thing. He knew he was not “academic smart”; he was not the person to be making decisions for other people. Just for himself.
“Shade Darby! How fast can you go?”
“Why have you come to New York?”
“Shade! Shade! Do you have a comment on the accusation that you started all this?”
“I’ll take three questions,” Shade said. “Go.”
It was a high step up into the SUV, and Armo gave Cruz a hand. Francis, Malik, and Dekka all piled in, while Armo waited behind just in case Shade needed some support.
Which, when he considered it, brought a wry smile to his lips. On the power scale, Shade was way more dangerous than he was.
A woman with a pile of blond hair, who Armo vaguely thought he might recognize from TV, thrust a microphone at Shade. “Why are you here?”
Shade made a show of thinking it over and said, “We’re here to see some Broadway shows. Next question?”
“Can you morph for us?” came a shouted question.
“I could, but then I’d have to answer questions in a high-pitched buzz. I’m told it’s hard to understand.”
Then Shade made eye contact with Armo and jerked her head. Meaning . . . What? And then it dawned on him. He climbed in, closed the door, and said, “Drive. Go! Now! Trust me.”
The SUV started moving, and instinctively the reporters and their cameramen shifted attention to it, some breaking into a run to try and keep pace.
The driver looked in the rearview mirror and said, “What about your friend?”
“Shade? Oh, she’ll be along. Drive on.”
Just as they were reaching the gate, the SUV’s back left door flew open and slammed shut so fast it only seemed to make a single sound. And Shade sat vibrating and resuming her normal human form.
“Sweet,” Armo said.
Shade winked at him. “Enh, it’s what I do.”
Armo was in the seat next to Cruz, careful not to sprawl into her. He had a tendency to take up most of whatever seat he was in, and he didn’t want her to think he was being “handsy.”
“Paparazzi,” Malik said with a droll grin. “We’re the new Kardashians.”
“Maybe I’ll start a fashion line,” Shade said. “Sell a Shade Darby perfume that evaporates superfast so you only have half a second to smell it.”
“Smell me now ’cause you won’t smell me later?” Cruz suggested, and Armo laughed appreciatively. He usually got Cruz’s jokes, while he often had the sense that Shade had said something funny that he just didn’t get.
The limo pulled onto a four-lane road and passed first a KFC and then a Taco Bell, reminding Armo that he was hungry. He’d slept most of the flight and not taken full advantage of the omelet bar.
Then he spotted an IHOP sign and followed it longingly with his eyes.
“Waffles or pancakes?” Cruz asked him.
Armo gave it some thought. “Pancakes. Waffles are great, but only in, like the first minute after they come out of the griddle. Pancakes hold up better.”
Cruz laughed, and Armo smiled in response. He remembered being on a movie set his father was stunt coordinator for, and overhearing Jim Carrey talking about how getting a laugh was the best drug ever. Armo hadn’t meant his answer to be funny, in fact he’d been going for thoughtful, but that didn’t make Cruz’s grin any less infectious.
According to Malik’s phone, the drive was normally forty-five minutes into Manhattan, but the bombardment had made a hash of the city’s already impossible traffic, and the ride took three hours, the last hour and fifteen minutes with Armo in agony from needing to pee. He’d considered peeing into a water bottle and decided no, that was not going to go over well, especially with a young girl like Francis in the car.
Armo would have distracted himself by talking more to Cruz, but she was asleep now, with her head lolling back and forth with each turn, until he let her head come to rest on his shoulder. Now he couldn’t move, had no one to talk to, and he still had to pee.
Stuff that never happens to the X-Men.
Finally they arrived at what Armo had heard Malik call a brownstone, a five-story brick townhouse on the Upper West Side. It belonged to the grandparents of the baby Cruz had rescued from fire in Las Vegas.
Cruz woke with a start, wiped drool from her mouth, and stared at Armo in horror. “Oh, my God, I slobbered on you!”
There were probably witty things to say in response to that, but all Armo came up with was, “No damage.”
A maid let them into the brownstone. The grandparents were in Idaho with extended family, dealing with the tragedy that had cost them their daughter and son-in-law.
The gang were exploring the brownstone and choosing rooms when Francis, looking through the sheer curtains hanging over the front windows, yelled, “Something’s happening!”
Armo leaned over Francis’s shoulder and saw four black SUVs and a big SWAT truck screeching up in front. Dekka moved beside him.
“What the hell?” Dekka snarled.
“We’ve been sold out!” Armo shouted, and began to morph, white fur sprouting from his body, puffing up the legs of his jeans and the sleeves of his shirt.
A fight? It had been a while. So, okay, then!
Malik said, “Not necessarily,” and Armo groaned inwardly. He was restless after hours on the plane and more hours in the limo. He kind of liked the idea of stretching out by bashing a few heads together.
“I really don’t want to have to hurt cops who are just doing their job,” Dekka said, but she, too, was morphing, preparing for battle. None of them thought they’d have too hard a time winning this fight, but no one really wanted it, not even Armo, not really. They were all tired, and this was not the enemy. Probably.
“I’ve got this,” Malik said.
“I’ve got your bzzz zz zzz.” Shade Darby was morphing in mid-speech, vibrating in place like a hyperactive greyhound on a short leash.
Malik opened the front door and stepped out just as a dozen people in tactical gear, helmets and assault rifles at the ready, came storming up.
“Please stop. I don’t want to hurt you,” Malik said, but the SWAT team was not used to listening to protests from the people they were arresting.
“Hands in the air! Hands in the air!” They rushed him, guns leveled. There was a burst of wind, a blur, and the first three SWAT members suddenly had no guns.
“Take him down!” the special agent in charge yelled into a bullhorn, but a split second later the bullhorn was gone, and the special agent in charge was no longer in charge of anything, but had been physically dragged thirty feet to be propped up in front of Malik like a human shield.
“No one shoot! Safe your weapons!” the SAIC yelled, seeing sense now that he was in the line of fire.
“Please!” Malik said insistently. “Listen to me. We do not want to hurt you, but you will not win this fight. Please believe me: I can cause you terrible pain, pain that would drive you mad. I don’t want to have to do that.”
A woman in the navy-blue business suit of a federal agent held up her FBI shield and said, “We have warrants for your arrest. Release Special Agent Borowitz now! Do not attempt to resist.”
Then something strange happened: NYPD patrol cars raced down the block to come to tire-squealing halts, lights flashing. The street was soon completely blocked by NYPD forming a ring around the SWAT vehicle and the FBI’s SUVs. Out of one NYPD car stepped a man in a dress uniform so stiff it could probably stand by itself. He was one of those men who looked as if they must sleep, shower, and even use the toilet while at full, straight-backed attention. He had a voice to match the look.
“I’m Chief Hale, and someone better explain to me right the hell now why the FBI is pulling this bullshit while my city is still dealing with multiple deaths, panic, and looting.”
Shade released her hold on the FBI SAIC and pushed him gently away. There followed a heated conversation between the FBI and the NYPD over whether or not the Rockborn Gang was welcome in the city. After ten minutes, the mayor showed up looking like she hadn’t slept and was ready to explode at any minute.
“Get the hell off my streets!” she yelled at the federal agents. “Do you inflamed federal rectums even know what’s happening in this goddamn city? These people are here to help, and they have my personal guarantee of safety. So unless you intend to shoot it out with my officers, get the hell out of here.”
“On your head, Your Honor,” Special Agent in Charge Borowitz snapped, straightening his rumpled jacket. “I will inform Washington of your actions.”
“Yeah? You can tell Washington to go and—”
At which point Armo put his big paws over Francis’s ears. “You’re too young for language like that.”
The federal forces pulled away, tires squealing again, angry and frustrated. The mayor, the chief, and a youngish male detective in plain clothes came inside.
“I’m Mayor Chaffetz. Call me Louise. Chief Bob Hale, and Detective Peter Williams.”
They shook hands. They sat in the living room of the borrowed house, a house they’d scarcely explored.
“I’ll get right to it,” Mayor Louise Chaffetz said. “Something very bad has happened, and I don’t just mean asteroid shrapnel killing a bunch of my people and starting a bunch of goddamn fires.” She had bottle-blond hair, narrow brown eyes, a sharp nose, and a habit of drumming armrests with both hands at once, burning off nervous energy. She reminded Armo a bit of Shade.
The detective was white, under thirty, with a narrow face, thinning dark hair, and alert, watchful eyes. He did not sit but stood leaning against the wall. He looked like he was jonesing for a cigarette.
“Tell us,” Dekka said. “We’re not easily shocked.”
“No, I don’t suppose you are.” The mayor sighed. She looked around the room as if searching for allies. Her gaze lingered over a sideboard bearing half a dozen bottles of liquor. “Last night one hundred and three people who’d been struck by meteorite fragments were arrested by federal agents—some ATF but some ICE sons of bitches, too, and people we think were private contractors hired by who the hell knows anymore. The people—hurt people, injured people, people dragged out of surgery, for Christ’s sake, were driven to the Jersey Pine Barrens and . . .” Her weary but confident voice caught in her throat, and she backed up to start again. “They were taken to the Pine Barrens and machine-gunned. Shot down.”
The silence that followed stretched on so long Armo thought it might never end. He checked the faces of the others, not believing his own ears, but from their appalled expressions, they’d heard the same impossible thing he had.
Finally Dekka said, “I was wrong. I guess we are still able to be shocked.”
“It was a panic move,”
the mayor said. “And it seems to have failed anyway. One hundred and three people were driven there to be gunned down and their bodies burned. But the thing is, Jersey State Police say there are only ninety-nine bodies. That means four people are unaccounted for. Not to mention that there are still hundreds of people in the city who were hit.”
“American citizens were just, just gunned down in a field?” Cruz demanded. “My God, what is happening?”
“Fear. Panic,” the mayor said. “And it’s not without reason. We are pretty sure that at least one of those who survived has acquired powers.”
“What makes you think that?” Shade asked.
Mayor Chaffetz sat back and let go of a long sigh. “You’re going to need to see it. One or two of you, we have a helicopter with room for two passengers in addition to Detective Williams . . .”
“Why Detective Williams?” Shade asked.
“He’ll be your liaison with me and the NYPD. He has full authority to keep the Feds off your backs and make sure you have any city resources you need.”
“You won’t be coming?” Cruz asked the mayor.
The mayor looked down. Her whole body signaled weariness, but this was more than that. Armo saw that she clasped her hands together to hide a shake. “I went earlier. I saw.” Chaffetz shook her head, and when she spoke again her voice was low and quivered with emotion. “I don’t need to see that again. I don’t ever need to see that again.”
CHAPTER 11
Kill Us
TEN MINUTES LATER, Dekka and Francis—chosen at Malik’s suggestion—were in helicopter jump seats. Dekka sat in front beside the pilot; Francis and Detective Williams were just behind them. All wore can headphone sets with microphones curving around beside their mouths.
As they flew over the city, Dekka had a spectacular if depressing view that included scenes of devastation, buildings shattered, their makings and their forlorn contents blocking streets. Smoke hung over Central Park, and the still-billowing smoke of active fires could be seen all the way from downtown to Harlem.
Soon they were across the river, past miles of urban sprawl, and skimming at treetop level above a seemingly endless forest of identical pine trees, interrupted by marshes, by meandering streams, by small ponds reflecting a sun that failed to spread cheer over the gloomy scenery.
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