Nate Kenyon - Day One

The problem was, it was impossible to know what that threat might be. Even now, none of them had any real idea what had happened, or how far the contagion had spread. It seemed clear that some kind of terrorist attack had occurred, but how had they pulled it off? Were they still out there, still active? How long would it continue?

Don’t think about this, not right now….

Because what he was imagining was too terrifying, too overwhelming, to possibly be real. Hawke remembered the text messages he’d received: THE WORLD IS IN DANGER…. OPERATION GLOBAL BLACKOUT CANNOT BE STOPPED. IT IS GOING TO GET WORSE. He thought of the message board rewriting itself. How could Rick and Anonymous have done something like this? It just didn’t seem possible. And yet the evidence was mounting, and even Rick himself had admitted that he was the infamous Admiral Doe.

It’s not who you think, Weller had said.

If not Rick, then who? Could Eclipse really have orchestrated something like this, and if so, why? And what did it have to do with Weller’s laptop case?

Hawke’s thoughts were interrupted as they came to a four-car pileup. A brand-new delivery truck had rammed broadside into a Toyota minivan and pushed it into two parked cars, driving the twisted mass of metal halfway up on the sidewalk. There was blood smeared on the trunk of a tree. Hanscomb gave a small sound like a shuddering sigh and pointed at a pair of legs that stuck out from underneath the truck. A man’s legs in dark jeans.

Vasco held a fist in the air like a SWAT leader telling his team to hold. The Toyota’s passenger sliding door was open, more blood on the sidewalk beneath it. A voice was droning on from somewhere inside one of the vehicles.

“Is it Jim?” Young said. Price went around the side of the truck and crouched, then came up shaking his head. Hawke started toward the Toyota, drawn by the voice, but stopped when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. An NYPD security camera mounted high on a pole across the street was monitoring their progress. As Vasco moved back toward the sidewalk, Hawke watched it slowly pan to follow, keeping an unblinking, impassive eye upon them. Just like the cameras in the lobby of the Conn.ect building.

Hawke realized that the voice coming from the minivan was the same emergency broadcast he’d heard in the SUV. Hanscomb and Young moved closer to listen, but Hawke hung back. Vasco came around to his side, and Hawke motioned to him. “We’re being watched,” he said quietly.

“By who?”

“I don’t know. It’s a police security channel, though.” He pointed at the camera. He’d never realized how many cameras there were in the world these days; they were everywhere.

“Gives me the creeps,” Vasco said. “You think this has anything to do with that guy getting shot?”

“I don’t know,” Hawke said. “But I wouldn’t trust the cops to be particularly friendly.”

“Christ.” Vasco rubbed his face. “Just don’t say anything to the women—or Price, for that matter. He’s wound tight enough as it is.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Hawke said, keeping his voice low. “Where’s the emergency response? What about putting out that fire?”

“Maybe they’re busy somewhere else.”

“So that means it’s even worse in the rest of the city? And what about a bigger response from the military? You were in the army. Shouldn’t the streets be crawling with National Guard by now?”

Vasco shrugged. “My brother served two tours,” he said. “I was too much of a fuckup for them to take me.”

“But what you said back inside—”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it? I just wanted to calm her down, and I didn’t see you stepping up to the plate. Look, I’ve seen enough movies to know something about military strategy. My brother used to say leadership was less about what choice you made and more about just making one. We need someone to make decisions and keep everyone else in line.”

The sound of an approaching engine distracted them. They all ducked behind the Toyota. Hawke looked out around the bumper. A squad car was moving slowly west on 79th Street in their direction, nearing the intersection where the shooting had taken place, working its way through stalled vehicles.

A voice crackled over a loudspeaker, echoing through the streets: “A state of emergency has been declared. Go to your nearest checkpoint immediately and report any suspicious activity. These locations are being broadcast on the emergency broadcast system.”

The wreck they hid behind created a natural barrier, shielding them from view. But if the person behind the camera had radioed their position, there was nothing they could do.

The car crept closer and rumbled by, no more than ten feet from where they crouched. “Don’t move,” Vasco whispered. “We don’t know if they’re friendly.”

Hanscomb was trembling. “But they’re the police—”

Vasco glanced up at the camera, then motioned at Hawke. “You heard what he said. The cops shot an unarmed man. You want to take that chance?”

As the car passed, Hawke risked another peek around the other side of the van, getting only a glimpse of the driver, who wore a traditional NYPD eight-point cap pulled low over his forehead. He couldn’t tell if these were the same two cops who had shot the man in the street. Bullet holes peppered the car’s right front fender. A bloody handprint marked the rear passenger window, smearing the glass on the inside. There was someone in the backseat, but the glass was too dirty to make out anything other than a vague shape.

Maybe these same cops had shot that man. Maybe they were rogue cops who had cracked under whatever was happening in New York. Or maybe not. Hawke glanced at Hanscomb, who was trembling more violently, her teeth chattering together like she was in a deep freeze. Something seemed to break, and as she went to stand up Young grabbed her arm, pulling her back down. They waited until the car had turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Young finally let go of Hanscomb’s arm. She was sobbing, clutching her knees to her chest.

“We can’t treat the police like the enemy,” she said. “Even if they think we’re some kind of terrorists.” She looked up at Vasco, mascara smeared across her face. “Like you said, they must have had a reason for shooting that man.”

“Did you see the blood?” Vasco said. “The handprint? Someone else got hurt, and hurt bad. Maybe those cops did that, too. Maybe they’re just crazy, or maybe they do want us dead. But there will be a lot of people at Lenox, a lot more cops and emergency responders. They won’t be able to just gun us down like animals there.”

Hanscomb shook her head. “We’re going to die out here anyway. And we just let them go.”

The radio kept droning on from the Toyota:… Mayor Weber has declared a state of emergency…. Please go immediately to your nearest safety checkpoint….

Hawke glanced at Vasco. His hands were braced on the Toyota’s twisted fender. The finger that had been mangled had stopped bleeding, but the tip was an ugly red mess of meat. The hands splayed against the car looked too delicate for the man’s thick frame, too smooth and soft for a repairman. Hawke’s father had been the opposite: a thin man with big, calloused hands and stubby, gnarled fingers created from a lifetime of tinkering in garages and basements.

The smoke was getting thicker, swirling around them. Somewhere in the distance, a popping sound rang out, several in succession.

“Gunshots,” Price said. “Jesus. What now?”

“We can’t stay here,” Vasco said. “We’re sitting ducks out on the street. There’s no cover. We gotta keep moving.”