Nate Kenyon - Day One

Hawke closed his eyes. He remembered Thomas playing with Robin on the beach when he was barely able to walk, digging at the sand, tasting it and grimacing, feeling the water sift over his toes and squealing with shock, returning again to test the waves. Everything was tactile, an experiment; nothing was off-limits. There was something that soured the memory, something that had become more clinical about it. Hawke no longer remembered the day through the fuzzy-lens halo of affection. Poking at an ant, squashing it and watching it squirm. Thomas was testing hypotheses and evolving.

Hawke didn’t need the answers anymore, or maybe he just didn’t want them. He needed to get back to his family. Even the familiar buzz of the threads of an article winding together was gone. He was different now. The adrenaline rush had happened long ago, and he had been left hollowed out and cold and shaking with regret.

“What do you want?” Hawke said into the phone.

“Do me a favor, John. Watch over Anne. She’s only peripherally involved in this; she has no idea how deep it all goes. I’ve sheltered her for a reason.”

“She knows more than you think—”

“It’s more complicated than that. There was a mole inside Conn.ect, someone from Eclipse. My suspicions were Bradbury, but I never confirmed it. It doesn’t matter now. Just… keep her safe.”

Hawke watched the camera’s eye, but it didn’t blink, didn’t waver. The camera wasn’t like him. It wouldn’t ever stop, wouldn’t give up. There were no weaknesses to be found there, nothing to exploit. It would just keep monitoring his every move.

Unless the power was cut for good.

“I want you to meet me,” Weller said. “I have something for you, something you’ll need.”

“I don’t need anything other than to get home.”

“You need this.”

A thought came to Hawke, or the beginnings of one, not yet fully formed. Power, that was the key. He was barely listening to Weller anymore. She has eyes everywhere, Weller was saying. Dirty up your skin. You need to alter your appearance. Black marks across your cheeks, asymmetry to your faces. She can’t see you as well that way. Hawke was nodding, motioning to Vasco to get to his feet. Young was still reaching for the phone, the calm that had been her hallmark completely erased, and she was left full of unmet need, hopping from foot to foot like a little girl unable to wait her turn.

“Give Anne the phone,” Weller said. “Please. For just a moment.”

Hawke handed it over. Young turned away from him, speaking quietly, her shoulders hunched as if she was covering something up. If Weller’s creation was like a toddler now, Hawke thought, what would happen when she matured?

Young handed him the phone. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn’t crying anymore. “I’m going to the Lincoln Tunnel,” Hawke said to Weller. “Following it out of New York. You can meet me there, if you want. I don’t really care.”

“I’ll be there. And John—don’t stop for anyone, or anything. Avoid cameras if you can. Find a way to disappear.”

The phone went dead. Hawke touched the screen, watched the virtual ripple on its surface fade away to black. He tried to gather strength, harness his resolve. Outside the city, he would have a better chance. If he could get to his wife and son, get them away from here to a place with more open space and less technology, where they could weather the storm, they could make it.

Cuttyhunk Island. Where he used to go with his family, where he and Robin had been married. His aunt’s cottage. Isolated, small community, generator power, few cars or other mechanical devices. It would be the perfect place to hole up.

Let the authorities get things back under control. Someone would find a way to end this. It wasn’t up to him.

He imagined Robin and Thomas huddled in the apartment, furniture piled against the door while someone pounded to get in. Lowry, his greasy hair swinging free, murder in his eyes. Or perhaps they were already gone, empty rooms left with the echoes of screams. Robin’s last words haunted Hawke, would not stop running through his mind.

Young had started crying silently again. Vasco had stood up and was staring sullenly from beneath hooded brows, like a bully who had been beaten. Hawke wondered whether he might start swinging, but he made no move to come closer. What had happened between them remained unaddressed. But there was no time to deal with it now.

“I’m leaving,” Hawke said. “I’ve got an idea that just might get us out of New York. You can come with me or not. I don’t give a damn. But it’s my way from now on, no questions asked. If you don’t like it, find someone else to get you home.”

4:12 P.M.

THE LAUNDRY IN THEIR BUILDING was in the basement, coin-fed machines that rocked and shuddered across the floor below banks of fluorescent lights hung from chains. The room was defined by a concrete floor and walls with a drop ceiling that sagged downward and smelled like mildew and moisture with the heat of the machines. Beyond it was a doorway to a larger, open space that held the guts of the building’s heating and electrical systems, storage stalls and the leftovers of fifty years of tenants and office managers. Hawke had put a few boxes of their old things down there when they moved in, but people didn’t go in that far very often; when he did, it felt like he might never find his way out again.

He could take the rear stairs all the way down to the laundry room, and it was often faster than taking the old elevator. The last flight of steps was made up of raw boards that led to a narrow, improvised hallway of blue board tacked up against two-by-fours, a weak attempt to hide what was underneath with a thin skin of plaster and wood. If you touched the walls, they would shift like a stage set in a community theater.

Hawke put two mesh bags full of dirty laundry and a hamper for the folded clothes on top of a workbench that ran along one of the concrete walls. The laundry room was empty, but one of the dryers was ticking and tumbling, and the smell of hot, clean laundry was battling with the mildew for control. He considered throwing in a load but thought better of it. He had only offered to carry it down; after he returned to sit with Thomas, Robin would come and take care of the washing. Ever since he had turned their clothes pink, she had forbidden him from coming within ten feet of the machines. It was like a restraining order. He remembered her holding up a pair of formerly white underwear and the culprit, a red sock, shaking her head. Only half-joking, she’d accused him of doing it on purpose to get out of laundry for the rest of his life. If so, it had worked.

Hawke’s smile faded as he heard sounds coming from the open section of the basement.

He moved cautiously toward the open doorway, peering into the shadows, listening. Tiny windows, covered with years of dust and grime, let in a bit of watery gray light. A row of hot-water heaters stood like motionless sentries against the left wall, old plumbing running from them along the ceiling; nests of wires sprouted from electrical boxes beyond them. The middle section of the basement was taken up by thick concrete columns, old desks and other office furniture, gardening tools that looked like they hadn’t been used in years and other broken and useless pieces of junk. To his right were the tenants’ storage stalls, several of them with metal mesh doors hanging open, spilling their guts onto the concrete floor.

A chill came over him as Hawke heard the sounds again: a voice muttering too low for the words to become clear. He realized that he must be clearly outlined in the light from the laundry room as he stood in the doorway. But whoever was talking softly in the storage area didn’t seem to notice. The sound continued.