Hannu Rajaniemi - The New Voices of Science Fiction

I’ve often gazed across the city at the old Plaza Hotel and wondered what it was like when Central Park was more than a green spot on age-brown paper. But the upper stories of the Plaza barely rise above the mists on good days. If today turns bad, their crank system might shut down, with only their roof safe from the mists. Worse, I wouldn’t have enough air to return to Empire.

That’s why most mist scouts refuse to walk this route.

Bugdon smiles. He took a similar risk when he opened the passage to Chrysler. Risks like this could make me first in line for food and work.

“I’ll do it,” I say, picking up Jodi’s old helmet. I lean close to Bugdon. “But if my air runs out, I’m not gasping to death. I’ll crack my damn helmet to the mists.”

Bugdon nods, approving of such talk.

Here we are, at the heart of our truth: Why are there tens of thousands of people in Empire but so few who walk the mists?

Because in the mists, you walk the darkness. You count steps to avoid going lost. You bet you’re walking straight and not slowly curving left or right into death.

In the mists, lines and string-marked paths break and tangle. Shouts or yells echo and deceive. But numbers and straight walking—those are the truths that never let a scout down.

The initiation for every mist scout is the same—you’re taken to a bare girder at the top of Empire. Twenty feet straight out with nothing below but falling. Bugdon covers your eyes and you walk the girder, going to the end and turning around without seeing or falling to your knees. You navigate based on what you remember. By how accurately you step without seeing.

It’s scary hard.

Try doing it for thousands of feet.

I stride down Fifth Avenue with my helmet’s blinder locked down to hide the mists’ lies. I also listen to the mists’ words, something the other scouts don’t have to endure. I hear my name chanted on the wind. I taste their false promises. That if I give myself to the mists, I’ll live like the oldies in the Days-We-Knew. All I must do is open my suit and let the mists embrace my meat and bones and mind.

Time holds its breath as I walk the darkness. If I stop counting my steps, perhaps time won’t tick forward. Perhaps I’ll be stuck forever between one footfall and the next.

But those are merely the silliest of mist thoughts. I ignore them and walk on.

I’m stepping off stride 3,401 when I’m slammed to the pavement. I gasp, stunned. Rainbow flashes jump my eyes.

Someone has run in to me!

I’ve heard of this happening. Two scouts chancing upon each other in our endless world of hide and seek. “Don’t move,” I shout, reaching for the person’s helmet to steady them—the worst thing to do is panic and tumble, causing both of us to lose track of our steps and direction.

But instead of touching helmet my gloved hands touch face. Nose and mouth and the soft gush of flesh. I roll away and reach for my field hammer as a weapon to ward off this demon. I swing but hit nothing.

The person is gone. A person wearing nothing to protect themself from the deadly mists.

I freeze. Whoever hit me isn’t wearing a suit. Meaning they must see. And breathe. And touch the mists without it taking them. But how can any human do that?

Before I can think on that, fear runs me. I don’t know where I am. I’m lost in my suit’s black. I gasp hard, remembering Jodi strangling on bad air.

No! Think. Think! I smack the side of my helmet as the mists whisper to relax. To open myself to them.

No!

The person knocked me backward. That I know. Spun me a half turn around. Maybe. I also rolled once or twice. If I pivot back a half turn and add three steps for being knocked down and rolling, I should be back on the right path.

Maybe.

I breathe deep, panting, near panic. Afraid I’m lost. Afraid the demon or whatever will return. To calm myself, I crank the CO 2scrubber on my suit. But that won’t help much when I’m low on good air.

The mists urge me to accept their help.

Instead, I walk on.

I don’t run in to a building. I’m still on the street. At 3,432 steps I turn ninety degrees to the left. This is the test. I begin walking the remaining steps to the Plaza.

A few seconds later I’m knocked to the ground by a rumbling explosion.

Debris smacks and pings my suit and even without seeing I know one of the ancient high-rises around me is falling. I stand up to run but I’m thrown sideways like a quivering slug in a storm. I roll hard against what feels like a fire hydrant and wrap myself around it, afraid to move.

By the time the rumbling and shaking stop, my suit’s air tastes metallic, burning my throat. I gasp for breath, my body shaking, begging for air. I have no idea which way to walk. I think of Jodi. How he felt at the end. I don’t want to die. Not like Jodi.

“If you look,” the mists whisper, “you’ll see the Plaza.”

I stand, shaking and gasping. Momma looked into the mists once and survived what she saw. She went bat-bat, but she survived.

If I don’t look, I’ll never find the Plaza. I snap up my helmet’s blinder….

…and see Central Park rolling green before me.

I step from the fire hydrant and stare at the park. Before me adults and children laugh and play, chasing balls and frisbees across green grass and hiding behind giant trees. Everyone looks well fed. The park is a picture of happiness snatched from an ancient magazine or book.

I want to scream. I want to ask how this is possible. I want to play in the park with the well-fed people. But I don’t have time because my air’s strangling me. I turn and see the Plaza. The main entrance to the beautiful stone hotel is only a dozen yards away. I stumble toward it.

Someone shouts my name. A voice I know so well.

Momma.

“You go, Hanger-girl!” Momma yells. I see her standing beside a lake in the park, waving at me.

“Remember the mists,” Momma shouts. “But don’t give yourself to them until you’re ready.”

Even though I’m only a few feet from the Plaza’s entrance, I almost run to Momma. But she’s too far away. I’d never reach her before I die.

Stumbling through the Plaza’s entrance, I see the small lift basket. Praying this isn’t a mist trick, I collapse into the basket and tug the bell.

I rise into the sky as Momma’s voice again calls my name.

“Well done, Hanger,” she whispers. “Well done indeed.”

I live for three days with the people of the Plaza—drinking and sleeping and stuffing myself with more food than I’ve ever seen. There are only a few hundred toppers at the Plaza and they grow too much food to consume in a thousand wannabe-days.

And me, I’m a hero. A lucky hero. I survived a close-by high-rise collapse and made it to the hotel’s doorway after losing count of my steps. They celebrate me even as their Super asks more questions than I can answer. Her name’s Estelle—a weird name, but she’s older than the mists. Perhaps weirdness was more common back in the Days-We-Knew. She sits in a chair with wheels, a blanket warming her legs and lap.

Estelle invites me to her room on my last day at the Plaza. She lives several floors below the roof, only a few feet above the mists. Glancing out the window I see the thick white fog rolling by so close I could twirl my fingers in it. The mists often rise and fall unexpectedly and being this close is nerve-chilling.

Noticing my concern, Estelle chuckles softly. “Don’t worry, Hanger. The mists warn me before they rise.”

“The mists speak to you?” I ask, trying to hide my excitement. Maybe I’m not the only one who hears the mists talking.

Estelle nods as she rolls her ancient chair across the room. We stare through the window at the mists and the ruins of the collapsed building several hundred yards away. A single corner of the destroyed high-rise pierces the mists like a middle finger insulting the sky.