Nate Kenyon - Day One

But Hawke didn’t have time for second guesses, because Hanscomb was pulling him to the steps and into the tunnels, away from the light and into the shadows.

2:50 P.M.

THEY HESITATED AT THE FOOT of the steps for a few precious seconds, out of sight from above, catching their breath as the familiar hot, metallic and oily smell of the subway wafted over them. The power was out. There were a few emergency lights active, but the gloom and relative silence were unsettling.

A distant, low moan that sounded half-mechanical and half-human drifted up to them from somewhere below. Hawke imagined a hybrid being birthed down there in the dark, an offspring of the day’s events, fleshy limbs from piles of the dead weaved into the solid steel underpinnings of a machine. He thought of the people he had seen on the screens in the morgue, pacing in their cages. The absence of other human beings around them was beyond all comprehension. Millions of people lived in this city, and even more swelled the ranks during the day, commuters and protestors and contract workers and emergency responders. Where had they all gone?

Hanscomb was in shock. She clutched Hawke’s hand, breathing fast and shallow, panting. “I need to wake up,” she whispered, and he got the feeling she was talking more to herself than to him. “They killed him! Oh my God. This is a nightmare, isn’t it? It can’t be real.”

“It’s real. I’m sorry.”

“Are you really a part of this thing? Is that why the police are shooting at us?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not. But Jim was right. Someone wants them to think so.”

“But you said you were involved with those hackers before—”

“I was just a stupid kid,” he said. “I made some mistakes. But they were for good reasons. I would never be involved in something like this, Sarah. I promise you. I have a son, a three-year-old boy. I have a wife; she’s pregnant.”

“You tell me the truth,” Sarah said. She looked at him in the shadows. Her eyes looked wet. “You tell me one more time you had nothing to do with this, and I’ll believe you.”

He thought about telling her about the documents he’d seen and everything Young had said back in the morgue, but he didn’t think Sarah could handle it. Even the thought of giving voice to the idea seemed crazy. “It’s true. I swear. I’m a journalist. I was working on a story in the city. Wrong place, wrong time. That’s all.”

She sighed, and it seemed to take more years out of her. “I’ve never been in trouble with the law,” she said. “I… I wouldn’t have made it back there if…”

Hawke felt the bones of her fingers, light as a bird and just as fragile, an old woman’s grip. He shook his head. She was wheezing softly, her face haggard in the dark.

They waited, pressed tight against the grimy, tiled wall, but no one came after them and they took the hallway deeper inside. A clinking sound drew Hawke’s attention. Vasco was rummaging through the attendant’s booth. A moment later, Vasco straightened and a light flicked on, a flashlight beam playing over a deserted entryway, arrow-shaped graffiti sprayed in a corner, the familiar turnstile access to the platform below the entry sign and symbols for each line, a dented periodical box half-tilted and empty, its plastic cover dangling from one hinge like a loose tooth.

The light washed over Anne Young, who was standing absolutely still, arms folded across her chest like a petulant child. Tears were streaming down her face, but she didn’t make a sound, didn’t even blink before the light left her in darkness once again.

Abruptly the beam’s glare found Hawke’s face and remained there. He put up an arm, blinking against the light. “Knock it off,” he said.

Vasco kept the beam on him. “The fugitive,” he said. “After what happened up there, I guess we’ve got the answer to whether they’ll shoot first and ask questions later. Did you bring them right to us?”

“At least he stayed back to help me,” Hanscomb said, the words spat from her mouth as if she’d tasted something rotten. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

“Touchy,” Vasco said. “Maybe he was using you as a human shield.” He let the beam play down Hawke’s body to his feet, then flicked it to Hanscomb’s face. “Where’s Price?”

“He’s dead,” Hanscomb said. “They shot him.”

“And you got away,” Vasco said, flicking the light at Hawke again. “How convenient.”

Hawke felt blood rush to his face. “You son of a bitch—”

“Take it easy, hero,” Vasco said. “Just pointing out the obvious. The two of you should find your own way out of here, maybe. Safer for me.”

“I don’t think so,” Hawke said. “You’ve got the flashlight. Besides, you’ve got so much experience in dangerous situations, right? Maybe you should tell us what the best strategy is for a war like this.”

“Look,” Vasco said, taking a step closer in a vaguely threatening way that Hawke didn’t like. “I don’t give a shit whether they know the truth or not.” He took another step, keeping the beam on them. “I wasn’t in the army,” he said. “Okay? Shocker. They didn’t like my attitude. I told you what you wanted to hear back there at the temple. Who cares? You were hysterical and about to go off the rails.”

Hanscomb didn’t seem to react at first. The flashlight showed a tightening around the eyes, a firming of the mouth. “I don’t like being lied to.”

“Sue me. I got you this far, and we’re alive. You think he hasn’t lied to you, too? He’s lied to all of us.”

“I haven’t lied about a damn thing. You ran off and left one of us to get shot in the back. Some leader.”

Vasco waved the light toward the stairs up to the street, muscles in his arm standing out like ropes. “Fuck you. Anytime you don’t like my plan, there’s the door. But if you want to stay with me, just do what I say. Now we better keep moving, don’t you think? Before V for Vendetta here brings the heat down on our heads.”

He turned and vaulted one of the turnstiles, the light bobbing and flashing in the shadows beyond. “You coming or not?”

Hawke went over to Young, who hadn’t moved. Her wet face glistened in the dark like something polished. “We have to keep going,” he said, and maybe it came out harsher than he’d intended. “One of us is dead. There’s nothing more for us up there. Or maybe it’s something else you’re frightened of. You want to tell me exactly what they want with us? Why they trapped us in that hospital?”

Young shook her head. He could barely see her at all now as the flashlight retreated. When he tried to touch her arm, she jerked away. “Don’t,” she said. But she followed him over the turnstiles and after the light that bobbed and swayed beyond like a beacon flashing a warning.

3:05 P.M.

A SECOND FLIGHT OF WIDE STEPS brought them to the next level, uptown and downtown tracks side by side beyond a long, narrow platform spaced with support columns and holding old benches. A few more emergency lights dotted the ceiling, but the glow barely cut through the gloom. Normally this stop was well lit, but now it was dark and silent, the vast warren of tunnels sensed rather than seen. Hawke had been here just a few short hours before and it had been bustling with activity, hundreds of people streaming in and out and going about their daily lives, but that seemed like a lifetime ago, all that had come since like a nightmare he couldn’t escape.

Price was dead. It could have been any of them. And Vasco didn’t even seem to care.

The group stayed close to one another as they approached the tunnel. Vasco played the flashlight around the platform and peered over the edge of the drop to the tracks. A noise like a bird’s wings made him swing the flashlight beam quickly back to find a scrap of newspaper that fluttered against a bench. The draft brought the scent of more hot grease and ozone and what might have been another moan, but Hawke couldn’t be sure. Fear prickled his skin. It was like the faint call of a whale in the deep.