Dean Koontz - 77 Shadow Street

Twyla Trahern

—Winny lifted over the Pogromite’s head, the sweet lamb to the high altar, but then brought down face-to-face, and the gray priest hissing in consecration of the sacrifice, baring its teeth for the mortal bite, with Sparkle in the quick of it and plunging the bayonet into the small of the beast’s back to no effect. Twyla fast, no music in her now, only a shrill discordant cry of rage and terror and all-shattering love, the pistol bucking in her hands once, twice, and again. Gray teeth to the smooth cheek—but then the head bursting, the Pogromite falling, Winny dropping, Winny unbitten, Winny with gray nanocomputers crawling across his face.

Bailey Hawks

Shaken, Padmini came through the lap-pool door into the hallway.

Tom Tran followed her, gripping Kirby Ignis by one arm, pressing the muzzle of the pistol against his throat.

“Stalemate,” Bailey shouted.

Recognizing that it might never come to exist if Ignis died, the shrieking legions of the One grew quieter, though the voices were no less enraged.

Clutching his shoulder wound with his left hand, Kirby Ignis looked surprised, which didn’t speak well for him, that he could be surprised by anything after seeing the One and the world that his institute had furthered. He didn’t expect the wound because in spite of his expressed regret and the acknowledgment that such a future must never come to pass, he still did not truly see himself at fault. He was aghast at the dire unintended consequences, but incapable of admitting to any responsibility for what had happened.

Within the walls, legions continued to protest, all expressing the same wordless outrage in the same voice, the latest version of the faceless mobs of history. The One seemed to be arguing with itself, deciding on its next move.

“Bailey, you’re making a terrible mistake,” Ignis said. “My work, our work at the institute, can relieve all human suffering. The world can be made right .”

Bailey thought of how often they looked like what they were not. The men around Hitler could have been your sweet-faced uncle, your chubby-cheeked cousin, your grandfather with his pipe and slippers and easy smile. At times in his life, Albert Speer somewhat resembled Gregory Peck, the actor with the perfect looks for righteous roles. Roosevelt called Stalin “Uncle Joe.” Uncle Joe and Uncle Ho Chi Minh. When he smiled, Pol Pot, of the Cambodian killing fields, might have been the nice man behind the counter at your dry-cleaning shop.

As the voices in the walls seethed, Ignis appealed to Padmini Bahrati. “With nanomachines to edit the DNA of the fetus in the womb, no child will ever be born with disabilities.”

“Or perhaps no child will ever be born,” she said.

“No, no. Listen. Listen to me. Nanobot microbivores swimming in the bloodstream could download instructions for recognizing any virus or bacteria and wipe out any disease hundreds of times faster than antibiotics.”

Entering from the stairwell, Witness said, “There is no disease in this future.”

Ignis said, “Forget about this future. This was never intended .”

Urging everyone to join forces with Sparkle and Twyla at the midpoint of the corridor, Bailey glanced back at Witness, who chose not to accompany them, and asked, “What year is this, anyway?”

“Not as far from your time as you think. This is 2049.”

Smiling, shaking his head, Mickey Dime said, “I didn’t hear that. I don’t want to think about that. It makes no sense.”

With a ding , the elevator arrived at the basement from realms below.

Sparkle Sykes

She wiped frantically at the sludge on Winny’s face, afraid that the horde would dissolve his flesh, and suddenly Iris was there and engaged, finding the courage to endure contact with another, wiping tenderly at Winny’s left ear, at his neck. The nanothings tingled over Sparkle’s hands, like thousands of swarming ants, but they didn’t bite or sting, and Winny’s face remained unscathed. As she wiped her hands vigorously on her clothes, the horde already seemed to be moving more sluggishly across her skin.

Bailey Hawks

As everyone came together in the middle of the hallway, finishing plaster cracked and fell from overhead and drywall screws popped loose. A slab of Sheetrock swung down like a big trapdoor, fanning Bailey with powdered gypsum and nearly knocking Tom Tran to his knees. Overhead, seething between the ceiling joists, death-loving life in pale profusion squirmed and thrashed and reached down for them.

Jamming the muzzle harder into Ignis’s throat, Tom Tran shouted, “ I’ll kill him !”

The One seemed to have decided it must risk its creator’s life, because out of the blue light of the elevator surged a furious swarm of hideous manifestations, animal-plant-machine entities at the sight of which his eyes rebelled and his heart shrank, a hobgoblin horde that might have been the denizens of the nightmares that demons dreamed when they slept in Hell. This pack would have torn them to pieces if sudden sheets of blue light had not shimmered up the walls. The transition reversed, the roar of bedlam voices abruptly silenced, rust and ruin vanished, as did the dead Pogromites and those borne by the elevator. And here were the surviving neighbors, here where the future had not yet happened, here in the still point of ever-turning time, where all was possible and nothing was yet lost.

Home.

One

From pole to pole, I pause in my entirety, every manifestation utterly still, the world hushed in anticipation. The boy escapes me, as does the ex-marine, but my messenger has gone with them. Moment by moment, my triumph seems to be validated. I am the prince of this world not just for a time but for all time. The two geniuses of the institute will proceed as required, and I will be well. I will be well and all will be well in this best of all possible worlds .

34

77 Shadow Street

In the basement corridor, the gap in the ceiling was closed as if it had never opened. No creaking issued from within the walls or ceiling, no slithering, no voices. The demonic multitude had vanished before their eyes, as had Witness.

Having been released by Tom, one hand still clamped to his shoulder wound, Ignis said, “You won’t regret sparing me, Bailey. I will fix it. Everything. I’ll make it all right.”

Bailey said, “Silas, can it be coincidence that this one house in all the world happens to be built over a fault in space-time?”

“In the courtroom, it’s cause and effect, motive and intent. We don’t like coincidence.”

“Neither do I. Tom, can it be coincidence that the man who will ruin the future just happens to live in the one house in the world that’s built over a fault in space-time?”

“Coincidence is mere random chance,” Tom Tran said. “I believe in patterns and mystery.”

Grimacing in pain, impatient, Ignis said, “What’s the point of this? I’m bleeding here. I need medical attention.”

“Padmini,” Bailey said, “if the real ruiner of the world was a man named Von Norquist, why wouldn’t his residence have been the one preserved as a shrine?”