Dragon Town
Page 13
Chapter Thirteen
"What are we going to do now?" Sapphire whispered breathlessly. The girl didn't seem to have noticed them yet. She seemed to be gazing off into space.
"Keep driving?" Argus suggested. It seemed like the sensible thing to do. Apparently he'd been wrong about the thing not being able to find him. All he could think now was that maybe it wouldn't be able to find him again, if he just ran away. For the first time ever he considered it. Images flashed through his mind, of moving vans and highways, maybe even an airplane or two and a continent away, and just how far was New Zealand? He'd always heard it was nice. He was so preoccupied with these visions and notions that he didn't at first notice Sapphire opening her door and getting out of the car.
"Sapphire! Wait!" he shouted. She was standing outside now, and leaned over to peer back in at him still sitting there in the passenger seat.
"Take the car if you want," she told him. "I left the keys in the ignition."
With that, she turned and walked toward the building. Now the girl saw her coming and turned to face her. 'That girl isn't at all how she's been described,' Sapphire thought. 'This girl isn't aflame, or anything like it. She's just a young girl, a bit tall for her age, with short black hair and bright eyes, a straight nose and thin lips'. She was wearing a red shirt and blue jeans.
'Maybe the red had been taken for fire?' Sapphire wondered. The girl's skin was bronzed, much like her own, but the only thing strange that Sapphire could see was that the girl didn't smile, or have any other expression on her rather nice face. She seemed calm. It was just an impression. Sapphire drew closer with each step and the girl remained passive, arms by her side, simply waiting.
Argus, meanwhile, got out of the car too. He hadn't intended to do that, didn't know why he did. Certainly he didn't want to go near the young girl, and Sapphire didn't seem to need help. He found himself standing by the car, just watching. In that he was joined by agents Phipps and Hawkins, who'd also emerged from their undercover vehicle, and now stood gaping like prairie dogs on the side of the road.
Sapphire was preparing some questions. She was going to interview this child, see what she could get out of her. First things first, she reminded herself. Who are you and where did you come from? Where do you live? What is your name, and who are your parents? She couldn't believe that the girl was a thing, not a person. Clearly it was a girl. She must have a story like anyone else. Sapphire wasn't afraid, and recalling Agent Sneed's panic, she nearly laughed out loud, thinking of all the fuss that they had made of this child.
"Hi," Sapphire said as she came up to the girl, whose eyes met hers and seemed friendly.
"Hello," said the girl.
"My name is Sapphire Karadjian. I'm a reporter."
"I know who you are," the girl said, and held out her hands, palms up before her. Sapphire looked at them and saw nothing odd. She looked back at her face.
"Can I ask you some questions?"
"There's no need," the girl said. "Take my hands."
The girl took Sapphire's instead, grasping each with one of her own. Sapphire felt a jolt blasting through her whole body, a sensation rolled through her like a wave in her bloodstream, not pleasant but not painful either, a little bit dizzying. She felt she was losing her balance but that feeling only lasted for a moment.
"What is it?" she murmured aloud, but by then it faded and she felt normal again. The girl was still holding her hands.
"Where are we going?" Sapphire said, although they were both standing still. The girl said nothing but squeezed her hands tighter. Sapphire had the feeling that every thought that had ever passed through her brain was being juggled and shifted into different positions, rearranged and re-ordered as if to make room. For a moment she thought she was going blind, but it was only her eyes seeing flashes of white, and this soon receded as well. The girl suddenly let go, and Sapphire relaxed. She hadn't even realized how tense she had been, or that she had indeed been afraid.
"I was lying to myself," she mumbled, then laughed and looked at the girl.
"Sometimes I think out loud," she explained. The girl smiled. She actually did, and it made Sapphire feel happy somehow.
"Okay," Sapphire said. "I get it. Let's go."
Together they walked back to the car. Argus took a step back but the girl, even Sapphire, took no notice of him. Sapphire opened the passenger door, and the girl climbed inside and sat down. Sapphire went around and got back in the driver's seat. She buckled the girl, and then buckled herself. Then she pulled out her phone and called Sneed.
"I'm going to need an escort," she said, ignoring Sneed's questions. "Your boys over here will do fine. Tell them to take me in. You know where," and hung up.
She watched as Phipps and Hawkins scrambled into their car and, putting a cop light onto their hood, drove off with the thing flashing red. Sapphire followed. They drove through the heart of the city, all the way across town. Sapphire and the girl didn't talk. As the child said, there wasn't a need. Sapphire was getting excited. Everything was going to make sense after all, and it was going to be easy. She knew it.
As they neared the sinkhole they had to slow down, to make their way through the caravan of television platforms and tents. The siren was blaring now and she could see Phipps screaming at people from behind the wheel. Barricades were moved, and trucks backed up to let their cars past the layers of fences and walls. The sinkhole was surrounded by even more of a fortress than Sapphire had thought.
"It must really be something," she said, and looked at the girl, who was only staring ahead. When Phipps came to a stop and got out of his car, Sapphire stopped and turned off her own car, and took a deep breath.
"I guess this is it," she said to the girl, who nodded and waited for her door to be opened. Sapphire got out, went around, and gave her hand to the child. Sapphire expected to be bothered by someone at this point, but nobody dared to come near her. She scanned the faces of the guards and the agents she saw, and noticed concern in some and terror in others. They kept their distance, shuffling unsteadily on their feet.
They were close to the hole, and she could see it was indeed huge, but other than that, it was nothing, it was only a hole in the ground. She couldn't see what the big deal was about. The girl took her hand and they walked toward the edge. Sapphire looked down and saw rubble and rocks and dirt and occasional trash that had probably flown in with the breeze. She felt the girl taking and squeezing her hand once again. Sapphire squeezed back and felt a surge of emotion, of warmth toward this child. She looked over at her and she smiled. The girl tilted her head and had a strange look on her face, half a smile, half a question.
"Now what?" Sapphire asked, and the girl lifted her chin toward the hole. Following the girl's eyes, Sapphire looked again toward the hole and again felt that flashing effect in her eyes. She thought now she was dreaming. She saw right in front of her a long, swaying rope bridge dangling over the sinkhole. She knew it had not been there a moment before.
"How did that get here?" she blurted out, and felt the girl tugging at her.
"Are you crazy?" Sapphire asked, but she followed as the girl took a step off the edge of the hole.
"That's like a hundred feet down," Sapphire muttered, "there's no way."
She walked onto the bridge and it held.
"I know it's not even here," Sapphire quietly said, "but it is, isn't it?"
Nobody answered. The girl was still pulling her along, and Sapphire took another step, then another. The rope bridge was swaying a bit and with her free hand she steadied herself on its railing.
"Just don't look down," she said to herself, and instead looked ahead, and saw, at the end of the bridge, and not too far off, what looked like some kind of jungle. She thought she heard birds and saw motion up there, trees maybe swaying and underbrush rustling. She kept walking. The air became warmer with each step she took. It felt good. At the end of the bridge they stepped off and were there. Sapphire looked back. There wasn't a bri
dge, or a sinkhole, or any such thing as Spring Hill Lake either. There was nothing but jungle around her, and the girl was still with her, and now the girl was giggling and her eyes were bright and shining and Sapphire started laughing too and she knew, all at once, all about it.
The thing wasn't sick. It wasn't stuck. It wasn't scary and it didn't intend any harm. It had something to give. It wanted to give. It was joy. It was good. It was beautiful.
Chapter Fourteen
From Agent Sneed's point of view, Sapphire Karadjian had vanished along with the girl. The moment they stepped into the hole they were gone, just like that, like the bird she had seen earlier, raven or not. It meant a headache of a report to be filed, but file it she did, and the paperwork made its long way to that vault where everything to be gladly forgotten was eventually stored. And forgotten it was, because not long after Sapphire vanished, the End Times themselves also came to an end. The fires went out in the hole. The pit stopped its burning and smoldering, the smoke cleared, and the heat went away. By the weekend it was only an eyesore.
In the weeks and months that followed, decisions had to be made. You couldn't keep the security going forever, especially now that nothing was happening and there wasn't any more point in it. First the television cameras drifted away, as the ratings sagged and viewers got bored. The number of guards was steadily whittled down to a handful. Then the fences began to come down and the city planners met and planned hearings and even more meetings. They brought in trucks with lots of gravel and dirt and filled in the hole so it wouldn't be a hazard any longer.
Eventually a contract was put out for bid. Anyone with ideas on what to do with the place was invited to submit a proposal. There was one from a firm called Hedgeley and Kirkham, Architects. It was Argus' idea to cover the thing with a meadow, no buildings or structures at all, just a field, basically, open space. This notion was rejected as impractical.