Scott Westerfeld - The Last Days

“Juilliard wasn’t a waste, Mom. Not hardly. But it’s… over.”

She looked at me, trying to muster up a look of disbelief, but she knew I was right. Fewer students showed up for classes every day, and those that were still around were all planning some kind of escape from the city. Ellen Bromowitz had called it exactly right: one week ago, the senior orchestra had been officially put on hold for the rest of the year. The infrastructure was already failing.

“Plus,” I said, “this is my lifelong dream and everything.”

“Lifelong? You’re only seventeen, darling.”

I looked up at her, about to reply with some snark, but her eyes had turned shiny in the sunlight. Suddenly I saw something I’d never even imagined before: my indestructible mother looking fragile, as if she really was worried about the future.

I wondered if her friends were all doing the same as mine—heading to Switzerland, leaving the city behind. What if no one bothered anymore to raise money for museums and dance companies and orchestras? What if all the parties she lived for had no more reason to exist and simply stopped happening, leaving all her diamonds and black cocktail dresses useless?

Mom needed her infrastructure too, I suddenly realized, and she was watching it crumble away.

So all I said was, “Seventeen years is a long time, Mom. I just hope this isn’t too late.”

I called Moz’s house right away to tell him to come along. The two of us had started the band, after all. This was our moment of success.

His mother hadn’t seen him that morning. She wasn’t sure if he’d come home the night before and didn’t sound very happy about it. Maybe sometimes in the past Moz hadn’t made it home on Friday nights, she kept saying, but the way things were these days, he really should know better…

I hung up a little worried, hoping Moz wasn’t going to go all lateral on me. Except for Alana Ray and almost-eighteen Min, all our parents had to countersign the Red Rat contracts. With our first gig only six days away, now was not the time to pick a fight.

I called Zahler’s house next, but there was no answer, and my brain started to spin with every imaginable reason the two of them might have gone missing. The police were investigating a lot of disappearances lately, especially underground; there was talk of shutting the trains down altogether. But Moz and Zahler wouldn’t be stupid enough to go down into the subway , would they?

Not now, when we were this close…

Astor Michaels had given me the address of a huge block of apartments on Thirteenth Street. I got there right on time and found him waiting in the lobby, an alligator-skin briefcase clutched under one arm.

“Shall we go on up?” he said.

“You live here?” I frowned. The lobby carpet was a bit threadbare in spots, and two security guards sat in reclining chairs behind the doorman, eyeing us carefully, shotguns across their laps.

“Heavens, no. Red Rat owns a few apartments here. I thought you might want to see one.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I looked at his briefcase. “Whatever.”

The elevators were the old-fashioned kind, zoo cages on cables. An ancient guy in uniform slid the door closed after we stepped in, then wrenched a huge lever to one side. The machine began to rise, the floors passing just through the bars. My hangover started to grumble about the three cups of coffee I’d had.

Astor Michaels turned to me, clutching his briefcase a little tighter. “Pearl, I’ve been doing this since the New Sound was really new.”

“That’s why I tracked you down.”

“And I’ve signed fifteen bands in that time. But yours has something special. You know that, right?”

As I watched the floors slide past, I let myself smile, remembering how thrilled I’d been to find Moz and Zahler. “We’ve got heart, I guess.”

“That heart is Minerva, Pearl. She is what makes you special.”

We came to a stomach-jerking halt. I swallowed, my heart beating harder, wondering where Astor Michaels was going with this. Did he not want to sign the rest of us? Was he trying to make me jealous of Min?

The elevator man was nudging his lever one way and then the other, bouncing us up and down to align our feet with the red-carpeted floor on the other side of the bars. I tried to remember how many glasses of champagne Astor Michaels had bought me last night.

“I know Minerva is special,” I said carefully. “I grew up with her.”

“Indeed.”

Finally the elevator lurched and bumped its way to a halt, and we stepped off into a long hallway. The cage rattled shut and slipped away.

Astor Michaels just stood there. “Of my fifteen bands, Pearl, eleven have self-destructed so far.”

I nodded. That was pretty famous, how Red Rat bands tended to explode. “All part of the New Sound, I guess.”

“And why do you suppose that is?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Drugs?”

He shook his head. “That’s what we usually tell the press. But it’s rarely true.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You mean, you cover up the truth by saying it was drugs ? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

“Generally. But certain things are worse than drugs.” He shivered. “Late last night, Toxoplasma had something of a meltdown. Right after their very first gig too. Those boys never really got along, you know.”

I saw a line of sweat roll down his forehead. It was the first time I’d ever seen Astor Michaels looking discomposed.

“What happened?”

“Who knows, exactly? It was all very stressful. And expensive to clean up.” He looked down at his free hand, picking under the fingernails with his thumb. “And messy.”

“They broke up?”

“Not exactly.” He didn’t smile. “As you say, that’s always been the problem with the New Sound. Toxoplasma had heart, but they only lasted a single gig. One gig! ” He let out a long sigh. “Morgan’s Army may last forever, but of course they’re not the real thing.”

“Hey, maybe they weren’t perfect last night, but I thought they played a great set. What do you mean, ‘not real’?”

Astor Michaels glanced up and down the empty hall. “I’ll tell you inside.”

He turned and walked away, and as I followed, my stomach started to roil again. My knees felt shaky, as if someone was adjusting the exact height of the floor beneath me. What were we doing here?

Reaching an apartment door, he rapped on it twice sharply, then waited a moment. “Don’t want to disturb the tenants, but I think they’re out.”

“Whose place is this?”

He pulled out a key, opened the door.

Zombie was waiting just inside.

“I could always see them,” Astor Michaels began. “Even before it happened to me.”

I was staring at the couch, where half of Min’s clothes were draped: black dresses and shawls and stockings strewn across the room. Two open suitcases lay on the floor.

My stomach twisted again. Minerva lived here now. Astor Michaels had installed her here, his special girl.

“They were coming to the clubs, leaking sex out of their eyeballs, only a few of them at first. But once they got onstage…” He shook his head. “They’re natural stars, charismatic as hell. Except for that one little problem.”

“They’re bug-ass crazy?” I said harshly, looking at the dresser—the old pink jewelry box I’d bought Min when she was twelve was splayed open, full of shiny things.

“Crazy? I work for a record company, Pearl. Crazy I could deal with.” He leaned forward. “But they’re bloody cannibals.”

I looked up into his eyes. Had he just said cannibals ?