Adam Baker: Terminus

BASE OF OPERATION:

509th Bomb Wing, Whiteman AFB, Missouri.

FLIGHT CREW:

Mission Commander Maj. R.G. DeWinter

Pilot Capt. T. Weiss

Co–Pilot First Lt. O. Gary

PAYLOAD:

Five kiloton B84 Sandman variable yield nuclear device.

DESIGNATED TARGET:

New York City.

CURRENT SPEED:

200 knots.

CURRENT ALTITUDE:

15,000 feet.

POSITION:

Holding pattern over Kinzua Dam, Allegheny, Pennsylvania.

Weapon armed.

Waiting for executive authorisation to commence bomb run.

A subway plant room deep beneath the streets of lower Manhattan.

A single, bare bulb furred with dust and webs.

Shadow and dereliction. Baroque electro-conductive ironwork. Westinghouse. Ampere/volt gauges. Ropes of cable sheathed in tar. Porcelain insulators, the milky glass bulbs of mercury-vapour rectifiers, a corroded rack of lead-acid batteries. Dormant, web-draped apparatus that hinted bygone years of high voltage crackle and dancing Tesla arcs.

Three prisoners cuffed to a water pipe. They each wore red NY Corrections state-issue.

‘Hear that?’ said Lupe. She nodded towards the plant room door. Rapid footsteps and shouting from the subway ticket hall outside. ‘They’re coming for me.’

‘Maybe the army guys are pulling out. Listen. Something’s got them spooked.’

Lupe shook her head.

‘No. I’m next on the kill list. They’re prepping the table, getting ready to dissect my ass.’

She gripped the pipe and tried to rip it from the wall.

‘Forget it,’ said Wade. ‘It’s anchored in concrete.’

‘Pull together. Come on. All three of us.’

She turned to Sicknote. The man was slumped against the wall in a drugged stupor. She kicked him alert.

‘Hey. Come on. We got to wrench this thing out the wall. Count of three, all right?’

They gripped the pipe.

‘One. Two. Three.’

They strained. Knuckles clenched white. Tendons in their arms and necks stood taut, distorting knife scars and gang tatts.

‘Told you,’ panted Wade. ‘It’s not going to shift.’

Lupe hung her head.

‘Go down defiant,’ he said. ‘Kick. Spit. Don’t make it easy for them.’

The door handle turned. Light shafted into the room.

Moxon stood in the doorway. His guard uniform was mottled with sweat. He cradled a Remington pump.

He stepped into the room and closed the door.

‘You here for me?’ asked Lupe.

Moxon shook his head.

‘What’s going on out there?’ asked Wade. ‘Why all the shouting?’

‘A presidential address on the emergency network. They’re going to bomb New York. Last chanced to halt the contagion. Couple of hours from now this city will be an inferno. The team are heading down into the tunnels.’

‘Oh my fucking God,’ said Wade.

‘So what about us?’ asked Lupe. She gestured to the shotgun. ‘Going to shoot us like rabid dogs, is that the plan?’

‘I got orders. Sorry.’

‘So how about it? You got what it takes to pull the trigger?’

He shook his head.

‘There’s been enough killing.’

He engaged the safety and hitched the gun strap over his shoulder. He unhooked keys from his belt. He released the cuffs.

The prisoners flexed their arms and massaged cuff-welts.

‘Thanks, dude,’ said Wade.

Moxon gave him a canvas satchel. An MRE food pack and a couple of bottles of water.

‘You got to run for it. Sprint across the ticket hall, down the steps to the platform and into the tunnel. Do it quick before anyone has a chance to draw down and waste your sorry asses. Don’t stop for anything or anyone. Element of surprise. That’s all you’ve got.’

‘All right.’

‘Two hours until detonation. Get deep as you can and ride out the blast.’

‘Thanks, man,’ said Lupe. ‘Thanks for giving us a chance.’

‘Get going. The plane is already in the air. Run. Run as fast as you can.’

They sprinted through the tunnel darkness.

Distant shouts. Gunshots. Bullets blew craters in concrete.

They threw themselves against the wall, took shelter behind a buttress.

‘They won’t follow,’ said Lupe. ‘Too busy saving themselves.’

Wade examined the wall.

‘This section of tunnel is pretty new, pretty strong. Maybe we’ll be okay.’

‘I’m not staying here,’ said Lupe. ‘I’m heading up top. I’m going to try and get across the bridge.’

‘You’re nuts. You’ve got less than two hours. You’ll never make it.’

‘I’ll make it.’

‘What about the streets? Infected. Hundreds of them.’

‘I’m fast. They’re slow.’

‘Madness.’

‘Come with me.’

‘No.’ He gestured to Sicknote sitting slumped and narcotised by the wall. ‘I can’t leave him.’

Lupe stood. She gripped Wade’s hand.

‘Take it easy, bro.’

‘Via con dios.’

She turned and ran into deep tunnel darkness.

Manhattan.

Cold dawn light. No people, no traffic. Avenues lifeless and still.

Looted stores. Abandoned yellow cabs. Dollar bills blew across Fifth like autumn leaves.

The city-wide silence was broken by engine noise reflected and amplified by Midtown mega-structures. Thin jet-roar reverberated through glass canyons, a shriek like dragging nails.

A high-altitude contrail bisected a cloudless sky. A thin ribbon of vapour. Something big, something vulpine. A B2: delta silhouette, wide span, heavy airframe.

Times Square.

Empty streets. Dead neon.

Theatres chained shut, yellow quarantine tape strung across the doors.

A stack of bodies outside Foot Locker, each corpse wrapped in carpet and tied with string.

All Uptown routes blocked by sawhorse barriers.

A wrecked limo at the centre of the intersection. Fender bowed and roof flattened by a toppled light pole. A chauffeur lay dead in the street. He wore a gas mask. Rats tore flesh from his hands.

The distant turbine shriek echoed around the empty junction. Crows shocked into the air. Shrill caws and a flurry of beating wings.

Central Park.

Barren trees. Tiered penthouse balconies, deserted terraces and sky gardens.

A white, cylindrical object slowly drifted to earth, twirling like a sycamore seed. A bomb suspended beneath a canopy of silk.

Detonation flash. A sudden, terrible radiance. The park engulfed in stellar light. The buildings surrounding the park instantly shattered to stone chips.

The shockwave dilated at a thousand miles an hour. Midtown spires encompassed by a fast-expanding bubble of overpressure. A tornado of flame and debris swept down the avenues.

The Empire State collapsed in a cascade of rubble, Zeppelin docking tower liquefied by the furnace blast.

The Chrysler Building’s deco pinnacle crushed like foil, limestone cladding pulverised to dust.

The pearlescent curtain walls of modern office buildings were ripped away in a blizzard of glittering shards. Girder frames wilted in supernova heat.

The firestorm washed down avenues like raging flood water, blowing out storefronts, flipping cars, melting asphalt to bubbling tar.

Then the inferno abruptly reversed and receded, snatching street debris and vehicles up into the conflagration as the nuclear heat-core rose and blossomed into a thunderous column of fire.