The City of Mirrors

by Justin Cronin

  “And you’ll be all right here?” Peter said.

  Another smile, but not the same—more of reassurance than something genuine. There was something hollow about it, even forced.

  “Perfectly.”

  63

  “Mirrors,” Chase repeated.

  Around the conference table, clockwise from Peter’s left, sat the players, Peter’s war cabinet: Apgar, Henneman, Sara, Michael, Greer.

  “It doesn’t have to be a mirror specifically. Anything reflective will work, just as long as they can see themselves.”

  Chase took a long breath and folded his hands on the table. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s not crazy at all. Thirty years ago, in Las Vegas, Lish and I were running from a pod of three and got cornered in a kitchen. We were out of ammunition, pretty much defenseless. A bunch of pots and pans were hanging from the ceiling. I grabbed one to use as a club, but when I held it out at the first viral, it stopped the bastard cold, like it was hypnotized. And this was just a copper pot. Michael, back me up here.”

  “He’s right. I’ve seen it, too.”

  Apgar asked Michael, “So what does it do to them? Why does it slow them down?”

  “Hard to say. My guess would be some kind of residual memory.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, they don’t like what they see, because it doesn’t conform to some other aspect of their self-image.” He turned toward Peter. “Do you remember the viral you fought in Tifty’s cage?”

  Peter nodded.

  “After you killed her, you said something to Tifty. ‘Her name was Emily. Her last memory was kissing a boy.’ How did you know that?”

  “It was a long time ago, Michael. I can’t really explain it. She was looking at me, and it just happened.”

  “Not just looking. She was staring. You both were. People don’t look a viral in the eye when it’s about to rip them in half. The natural impulse is to look away. You didn’t. And just like the mirror, it stopped her flat.” Michael paused, then said, with deeper certainty, “The more I think about this, the more sense it makes. It explains a lot of things. When a person gets taken up, their first impulse is to go home. Dying people feel the same way. Sara, am I right about that?”

  She nodded. “It’s true. Sometimes it’s even the last thing people say. ‘I want to go home.’ I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard it.”

  “So a viral is a person infected with a virus, strong, superaggressive. But somewhere deep down, they remember who they were. During the transitional phase, let’s say, that memory gets buried, but it doesn’t go away, not completely. It’s just a kernel, but it’s there. Eyes are reflective, just like mirrors. When they see themselves, the memory rises to the surface, and it confuses them. That’s what stops them, a sort of nostalgia. It’s the pain of remembering their human lives and seeing what they’ve become.”

  “That’s quite … a theory,” Henneman said.

  Michael shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I’m just talking out of my exhaust pipe, and it wouldn’t be the first time. But let me ask you something, Colonel. How old are you?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Sixty? Sixty-three?”

  He scowled a little. “I’m fifty-eight, thank you.”

  “My mistake. Ever look in a mirror?”

  “I try to avoid it.”

  “Precisely my point. In your mind, you’re the same person you always were. Hell, between my ears I’m still just a seventeen-year-old kid. But the reality is different, and it’s depressing to look at. I don’t see any twenty-year-olds around this table, so I’m guessing I’m not alone.”

  Peter turned toward his chief of staff. “Ford, what do we have that reflects? We’d need to cover the whole gate, and it’s best if we have at least a hundred yards on either side, more if we can do it.”

  He thought for a moment. “Galvanized roofing metal could work, I suppose. It’s pretty shiny.”

  “How much do we have?”

  “A lot of that stuff has moved out to the townships, but we should have enough. We can strip some houses if we come up short.”

  “Get engineering on it. We also need to reinforce that gate. Tell them to weld the damn thing shut if they have to. The portal, too.”

  Chase frowned. “How will people get out?”

  “ ‘Out’ is not the issue right now. For the time being, they won’t.”

  “Mr. President, if I may,” Henneman cut in. “Assuming this all works—a big if, in my opinion—we still have a couple hundred thousand virals running loose out there. We can’t stay inside the walls forever.”

  “I hate to contradict you, Colonel, but that’s exactly what we did in California. First Colony stood for almost a century, with a fraction of the resources. We’re down to just a few thousand people, a sustainable population if we manage it right. Within these walls we have enough arable land for planting and livestock. The river gives us a good continuous source for drinking water and irrigation. With some modification, we can still run oil up from Freeport in smaller loads, and the refinery itself is defensible. With careful rationing, using all of our refined petroleum for the lights, we should be fine for a very long time.”

  “And weaponry?”

  “Tifty’s bunker can supply us for a while, and probably we can remanufacture more, at least to last for a few more years. After that, we use crossbows, longbows, and incendiaries. We made it work at First Colony. We’ll do it here.”

  Silence from around the table; everybody was thinking the same thing, Peter knew. It comes to this.

  “All due respect,” Michael said, “but this is bullshit, and you know it.”

  Peter turned toward him.

  “So maybe the mirrors slow them down. Fanning is still out there. If what Alicia said is true, the virals we saw last night are just the tip of the spear. He’s holding an entire army in reserve.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  “Don’t patronize me. I’ve been thinking about this for twenty years.”

  Apgar scowled. “Mr. Fisher, I suggest you stop talking.”

  “Why? So he can get us all killed?”

  “Michael, I want you to listen to me very carefully.” Peter wasn’t angry; he had expected the man to object. What mattered now was making sure everyone stayed on board. “I know your feelings. You’ve made them very clear. But the situation has evolved.”

  “The time line has moved up, that’s all. We’re pissing away our chance sitting around like this. We should be loading buses right now.”

  “Maybe it would have worked before. But we start moving people out of here now, there’ll be a riot. This place will come apart. And there’s no way we can move seven hundred people to the isthmus in daylight. Those busses would be caught in the open. They wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “We don’t stand a chance anyway. The Bergensfjord is all we have. Lucius, don’t just sit there.”

  Greer’s face was calm. “This isn’t our decision. Peter is in charge.”

  “I don’t believe what I’m hearing.” Michael looked around the room, then back at Peter. “You’re just too goddamn obstinate to admit you’re beaten.”

  “Fisher, that’s enough,” Apgar warned.

  Michael turned toward his sister. “Sara, you can’t be buying this. Think about the girls.”

  “I am thinking about them. I’m thinking about everybody. I’m with Peter. He’s never steered us wrong.”

  “Michael, I need to know you’re with us,” Peter said. “It’s that simple. Yes or no.”

  “Okay, no.”

  “Then you’re dismissed. The door is that way.”

  Peter wasn’t quite sure what was going to happen next. For several seconds, Michael looked him dead in the eye. Then, with an angry sigh, he rose from the table.

  “Fine. You make it through the night, you let me know. Lucius, are you coming?”

  Greer glanced at Peter, eyebrows raised.


  “It’s all right,” said Peter. “Somebody needs to look after him.”

  The two men departed. Peter cleared his throat and continued: “The important thing is that we get through tonight. I expect every able-bodied person to man those walls, but we’ll need shelters for the rest. Ford?”

  Chase rose, crossed to Peter’s desk, and returned with a rolled tube of paper, which he unfurled on the table and weighed down at the corners.

  “This is one of the builders’ original schematics. Hardboxes were constructed here”—he pointed—“here, and here. All three date to the early days of the city, and none has been used in decades, not since the Easter Incursion. I don’t imagine they’re in very good shape, but with some reinforcement, we can use them in a pinch.”

  “How many people can we fit?” Peter asked.

  “Not many, at most a few hundred. Now, over here,” he continued, “you’ve got the hospital, which can fit, oh, maybe another hundred. Another, smaller box is underneath this building, the old bank vault. Full of files and other junk, but basically in good shape.”

  “What about basements?”

  “There aren’t a lot. A few beneath commercial buildings, some of the old apartment complexes, and we can safely assume there are a few in private hands. But the way the city was built, almost everything is on slab or pier. The soil by the river is mostly clay, so no basements at all. That extends from H-town all the way to the southern wall.”

  Not good, Peter thought. So far, they had accounted for fewer than a thousand people.

  “Now, here’s the granddaddy.” Chase directed everyone’s attention to the orphanage, which was marked “HB1.” “When they moved the government from Austin, one of the reasons they chose Kerrville is because of this. While the walls were being constructed, they needed a safe place to overnight the workers and the rest of the government. This end of the city sits on top of a large formation of limestone, and it’s full of pockets. The largest one is underneath the orphanage, and it’s deep, at least thirty feet below the surface. According to the old records, it was originally used by the sisters as part of the Underground Railroad, a place to hide runaway slaves before the Civil War.”

  “How do we get down there?” Apgar asked.

  “I went and looked this morning. The hatch is under the floorboards in the dining area. There’s a flight of wooden stairs, pretty rickety but usable, that leads down to the cave. Dank as a tomb, but it’s big. If we pack folks in, it can hold another five hundred at least.” Chase looked up. “Now, before anybody asks, I went through the census data last night. It’s just an estimate, but here’s how things break down. Inside the walls, we have about eleven hundred children under the age of thirteen. Not counting military, the remainder divvies up about pretty evenly in terms of gender, but the population skews old. We’ve got a lot of people over sixty. Some of them will want to fight, but I don’t see that they’ll be much help, frankly.”

  “So what about the rest?” Peter asked.

  “Of the remainder, we’re looking at roughly thirteen hundred men of fighting age. About the same number of women, maybe slightly less. It’s safe to assume some of the women will choose to defend the wall, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t. The problem is armament. We have weapons for only about five hundred civilians. There are probably plenty of guns floating around out there, but there’s no way to know how many. We’ll just have to wait and see what appears when the time comes.”

  Peter looked at Apgar. “What about ammunition?”

  From the general, a frown. “Not too good. Last night cost us badly. We’ve got maybe twenty thousand rounds on hand in a mix of calibers, mostly nine-millimeter, forty-five, and five fifty-six. Plenty of shot shells, but they’re only good for close quarters. For the big guns, we’re down to about ten thousand rounds in fifty-cal. If the dracs charge that gate, our ammo won’t last long.”

  The situation boiled down disconcertingly: maybe a thousand defenders on the wall, enough ammunition to last a few minutes at most, hardboxes for a thousand, and two thousand unarmed civilians with nowhere to hide.

  “There’s got to be someplace we can put people,” Peter said. “Somebody, give me something.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Chase said, “I’ve got an idea about that.” He rolled out another map: a schematic of the dam. “We use the drainage tubes. There are six, each a hundred feet long, so maybe a hundred and fifty people apiece. The downstream openings are barred; no viral has ever gotten through. The only access on the upstream side is through the waterworks, and there are three heavy doors between the tubes and the outside. The beauty of it is, even if the dracs breach the walls, there’s no reason they’d think to look here. The people inside would be completely hidden.”

  It made sense. “Ford, I think you just earned your pay for the month. Gunnar?”

  Apgar, lips pursed, nodded. “It’s a hell of an idea, actually.”

  “Everybody else?”

  From the room, a murmur of agreement.

  “Good, it’s settled. Chase, you’re in control of the civilian side. We need to start moving people to shelter as soon as possible, no last-minute rushes. Children under thirteen to the orphanage, starting with the youngest. Sara, how many patients do you have in the hospital?”

  “Not many. Twenty or so.”

  “We can use the basement hardbox for some of the overflow, plus the hardboxes on the west side of town. Gunnar, I’ll need a security detachment on all of these. Children only, plus mothers with young kids. But no men. If they can walk, they can fight.”

  “And if they won’t?”

  “Martial law is martial law. If they don’t take your advice, I’ll back your decision, but we don’t want to stir things up.”

  Apgar received his meaning with a tight nod.

  “The rest who don’t want to fight go in the tubes. I want all sheltered civilians in place by eighteen hundred hours, but let’s make this orderly to keep panic to a minimum. Colonel, you oversee assembling the civilian force. Send out a couple of squads to go house to house and put out a call for any additional weaponry. People can keep one rifle or pistol of their own, but any extras go into the armory for redistribution. As of this moment, any working firearm is property of the Texas military.”

  “I’ll get it done,” Henneman said.

  Peter addressed the group: “We don’t know how long we’ll have to hold them off, people. It might be minutes, it might be hours, it might be all night. They might not attack at all, just wait us out. But if the dracs get in, the orphanage is our fallback position. We protect the children. Is that clear?”

  Silent nods passed around the table.

  “Then we’re adjourned. I’ll want everybody back here at fifteen hundred. Gunnar, stay behind a minute. I need a word.”

  They waited as the room emptied. Apgar, elbows resting on the table, eyed Peter over his meshed fingers. “So?”

  Peter rose and stepped to the window. The square was quiet, with no one about, everything becalmed in the summer heat. Where was everybody? Probably hiding in their houses, Peter thought, afraid to come out.

  “Fanning will have to be dealt with,” he said. “This will never end otherwise.”

  “This would be the part of the conversation when you tell me you’re going to New York.”

  Peter turned around. “I’ll need a small contingent—say, two dozen men. We can use the portables as far north as Texarkana, maybe a little farther before we run out of fuel. On foot, we should reach New York by winter.”

  “That’s suicide.”

  “I’ve done it before.”

  Apgar looked at him pointedly. “And you were fucking lucky, if you’ll excuse my saying so. Never mind that you’re thirty years older and New York is two thousand miles away. According to Donadio, it’s crawling with dracs.”

  “I’ll take Alicia with me. She knows the territory, and the virals won’t attack her.”

  “After last night’s pe
rformance? Be serious.”

  “The city won’t stand unless we kill him. Sooner or later, that gate will fail.”

  “I don’t disagree. But taking on Fanning with two dozen soldiers doesn’t seem like much of a plan to me.”

  “What do you suggest? That we hand Amy over?”

  “You should know me better than that. On top of which, once we give her to Donadio, we’ve got nothing. No cards to play.”

  “So what, then?”

  “Well, have you given any more thought to Fisher’s boat?”

  Peter was speechless.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Apgar continued. “I don’t trust the man any farther than I can throw him, and I’m glad you tossed his ass out of here. I don’t tolerate division in the ranks, and he was way out of line. Also, I have no idea if that thing will even float.”

  “I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”

  Apgar let a moment pass. “Mr. President. Peter. I’m your military adviser. I’m also your friend. I know you, how you think. It’s served you well, but the situation is different. If it were up to me I’d say sure, go down swinging. The gesture might be symbolic, but symbolism matters to old warhorses like us. I hate these things, and I always have. But by any measure, this isn’t going to end well. Like it or not, you’re the last president of the Texas Republic. That pretty much leaves you in charge of the fate of the human race. Maybe Fisher’s full of shit. You know the man, so that’s your call. But seven hundred is better than nothing.”

  “This place will come apart. There’s no way we’ll be able to mount a coherent defense.”

  “No, probably we won’t.”

  Peter turned back to the window. It really was awfully damn quiet out there. He had the unsettled sense of observing the city from some distant future time: buildings empty and abandoned, dead leaves rolling in the streets, every surface being slowly reclaimed by wind and dust and years—the permanent silence of lives stopped, all the voices gone.

  “Not that I’m objecting,” he said, “but is this first-name thing going to be a habit?”