Day One

by Nate Kenyon

  “Please, you have to help us,” the woman said, clutching Vasco’s arm as he reared away from her. Her eyes were shining like polished quarters in the beam of the flashlight, and she was breathing fast and shallow. “My husband saw your light, and we had to come. We forced a door open and got out through the crack, but the rest of them are still inside and they won’t leave; they said it was better to wait, that someone would be there soon.”

  “Look,” Vasco said, shrugging off the woman’s determined grip, “We’re trying to find our way out, just like you. I don’t know what you expect us to do.”

  “Help them,” the woman said. “It’s the number four train, headed downtown before the power went out. There’s an old man on it; he’s having trouble breathing—”

  “Fuck the old man,” the fat guy said. “He’s not important, Patty. We need to get to the emergency room.” He waved sausage fingers at them. “I’m diabetic,” he said. “Need insulin.”

  “That’s bullshit,” a black man said from the back of the group. “You been saying that ever since the train stopped, but I never seen you having any kind of trouble.”

  “You shut your mouth,” the fat man said, pushing forward, pointing a finger. “You’ve been yapping at everyone and driving them crazy. I oughta knock your head off.”

  “Take it easy, Lou,” the woman named Patty said, touching the man’s shoulder and stopping him. “It’s not good for you to get upset. Your blood pressure.” He grunted, and she turned back to Vasco. Her voice was eager, as if needing to explain something. “We’ve been trapped inside that train for hours now, no way to know what happened. The damn thing sped up and then slowed down, passed a stop and went dead between platforms. The doors wouldn’t open and the lights went out. At first, the conductor, he said to stay calm, the power would come back on, but then there was some kind of explosion.… He said we’d be rescued soon. But no one came.”

  “It was so hot, we could have died,” another woman said, and murmurs of agreement spread through the others, who had gathered up close behind her. Hawke felt them crowding even closer and resisted the urge to edge away. Emotions were high; the energy in the group was at panic level.

  “Why couldn’t you have been cops?” the fat man said, peering into Vasco’s face. He was wheezing like an asthmatic. He had gone from angry to bewildered and back to an angry resentment, like a spoiled and disappointed child. But he had at least three inches on all of them and must have weighed three hundred pounds, and he seemed dangerously on edge. “What are you doing down here, anyway? Another stuck train? Jesus, our luck.”

  They don’t know, Hawke thought. They had been down here in the dark since the beginning, probably had only the most vague sense of the devastation above them.

  “Don’t try to get out of here,” Hanscomb said. She had backed away as the new group came closer, as if they had some kind of disease. Now she spoke from the deeper darkness toward the middle of the double tracks. “You don’t know what it’s like. They’ll kill you.”

  Vasco sighed and muttered something under his breath, moving the flashlight over her. The small crowd turned to face her, the murmuring increasing, cries of protest mixed with pleading. “What do you mean, ‘kill’?” someone said. “Are you nuts?”

  Hanscomb took another step back, as if ready to bolt. Hawke hadn’t realized how far gone she was since they had started walking the tunnel. Bringing up her family had pushed her too far. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes haunted pockets of bruised flesh. Her entire body shook like a frightened dog.

  “It’s the end of the world,” she whispered. The light was relentless. “There’s no help; they’re all killers. My babies…”

  She stopped as the crowd pushed forward again, all of them straining to hear. “I think my husband’s cheating on me,” she said. Tears made her cheeks glitter. “Maybe he’s not even downtown. He’s probably with her now. Oh God.”

  “Crazy bitch,” the fat man said. “Why are you scaring Patty like that?” The threat of violence hovered in the air. He put his hand on his wife’s shoulder, but she shrank away from him. He looked around at the others from the train, shook his giant head. “These people ain’t going to help us. We should have taken the Seventy-seventh Street platform up, like I said.”

  More murmurs, people talking at once, the tension rising still higher. These people had been trapped for hours, and they were ready to snap. The fat man took a step toward Hanscomb, who shrieked and nearly lost her footing, and Hawke was beginning to think things might get out of control quickly when emergency lights in the tunnel blinked on, along with a crack and hum like high-power lines.

  The light washed over them, people standing out in stark relief. Everyone froze for a moment, and then the fat man’s wife screamed, her eyes bugging out as she pushed apart the crowd and staggered away, clutching her belly as if she might be sick.

  Hawke turned toward where she had been looking. Sarah Hanscomb was in the midst of a grand mal seizure, her mouth frozen in a rictus of pain, her head turned upward at a strange angle, muscles rigid. No, not a seizure. She was making a noise like popping corn as she shuddered in place. Hawke realized it was the sound of her flesh crackling like a pig roasting over a flame. He looked down and saw her ankle touching the third rail, her clothes already beginning to smoke, wisps coming off her hair and the ridges of her cheekbones.

  It seemed to go on forever, Hanscomb held upright by the six hundred volts of electricity coursing through her body as she died and fell backward across the second set of tracks, still shuddering as if her body refused to let go of what was already gone.

  As she fell, a deep rumble came from somewhere up the tunnel.

  Everyone looked at one another in silence, frozen in the weight of the moment. The rumble grew louder, pebbles beginning to dance at their feet, a gust of wind sucking at them as if something huge had taken a deep breath.

  There was a train coming.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  3:42 P.M.

  VASCO WENT FIRST, running hard, Young behind him. Hawke took one more look at Sarah Hanscomb’s smoldering remains, his body feeling hot and raw as if his own skin had burned away and he had been left exposed. He wondered if anything had gone through her mind before the pain washed her away like a giant wave across a dune. And then he turned and ran with them, rushing recklessly through the shadows, the tracks beginning to hum under him as he risked a glance back and saw the lights of two trains bearing down, filling both sides of the tunnel as they came.

  He ran harder, faster, gaining on Young until he was nearly even with her and the bright lights of the Hunter College stop were approaching fast on their right, but the trains were so close now, he could feel the vibration in his teeth. Someone was shouting behind them, the sound nearly drowned out by the howling of the machines. He looked back one more time and saw the remaining group pushing one another frantically as they fought to escape, tangled up in the narrow space. He couldn’t see the fat man or his wife anywhere. The sound of the trains was deafening, the thunder of the tracks rising up as Hawke flew over the uneven ground.

  * * *

  Vasco reached the platform first, vaulting with both hands like a gymnast as the flashlight clattered across the floor, his legs just clearing the concrete edge before he rolled, reached back and swung Young up by her forearms, the muscles knotting in his shoulders as he grunted with the strain.

  Hawke reached it a moment later and took the leap less gracefully, his fingers scrabbling on the rough surface and his chest slamming into the edge and nearly bouncing him back off before he managed to twist up and over it. He thought of offering a hand to Hanscomb before he remembered, Sarah is dead, and in his head he saw her smoking face and rippled skin and eyes bulging before they popped like swollen blisters. The image burned into him and he wanted to steel himself against it, wanted it not to matter, but she had become one of them without him realizing it, and her loss was a wounding of them all, like a slow but fat
al bleed.

  The platform was narrow. He scrambled to his knees and faced the tracks. The front runners of the other group reached the platform just as the two trains came barreling through, side by side, both heading downtown. The trains were going way too fast, with nobody in the closest conductors’ chairs, and he caught a glimpse of the blurred, horror-stricken faces of those still inside as they clawed uselessly at the windows and doors.

  The first man was trying to climb up when the closer train cut him down like a mower through grass. Something wet hit Hawke’s face and he turned away as the hot wind buffeted him and the screaming of the machines grew deafeningly loud, or perhaps they were his own screams as he crouched, hunched over and rocking, wiping someone else’s blood from his eyes.

  * * *

  The trains rocketed through and disappeared, bringing another gust of wind and then a swiftly diminishing moan. The survivors were left on the abandoned platform as the overhead lights winked out again and darkness descended over them like a hot, suffocating blanket.

  Hawke tasted blood and spat on the floor, nausea washing over him. These people all had families, children, parents; they all had lives and lovers. What had happened was intentional, cold-blooded and cruel, a carefully orchestrated elimination of some kind.

  We’re a potential threat, Young had said. He had a sudden, terrifying vision of dozens of these trains across the city all racing toward one another like crosshairs on a target, making beelines for Grand Central and Penn Station and other underground emergency checkpoints.

  Another death trap.

  A minute later, a muffled thud shook the floor, followed by several more in quick succession; then a concussion rolled back down the tunnel and washed over them, the walls shivering, sending dust and debris and pieces of the ceiling raining down. Hawke curled into a tight ball, arms over his head, and as the debris finally stopped falling he tentatively sat back up, blinking against the spots that danced before his eyes, and against the tears.

  Hawke felt that man’s blood splatter him again and again, watched it happen in his mind’s eye like a film clip that kept replaying itself. He scrubbed at himself furiously with his sleeve and kept muttering the word “no,” a flat denial, a refusal. He was speaking without really hearing it, only wanting to hear his own voice. How many people had just died at Grand Central? Had it happened elsewhere? Was it just those on the trains, or had there been crowds of hundreds or thousands gathered there, waiting for help?

  Vasco moaned from the dark somewhere to Hawke’s right. Hawke breathed in concrete dust and smoke, coughing hard enough to tear at his lungs. He needed light. It was too dark down here, too suffocating, the walls and ceiling pressing down on him. He thought of Robin as he got to his feet, a heightened focus coming over him, a burning rage that began deep in his belly and spread through his limbs. He tried to remember which direction the flashlight had gone after it had left Vasco’s hand and nearly stumbled over a vague shape, catching himself on Young’s back. He patted at her; she was sprawled out, facedown but breathing. He tried to think of where she had been in relation to the platform; the flashlight had landed in the area just beyond where Vasco had pulled her up.

  There. Hawke’s fumbling fingers found the heavy metal body, and he flicked it on. The beam cut a path through the gloom, the dust whirling within it. He coughed again, holding his sleeve against his mouth. He peered at threatening shapes waiting to leap out, girders and pillars and concrete unfamiliar to him through the dusty haze. The light flashed across a blue and green tiled 68TH STREET HUNTER COLLEGE sign on the wall; several tiles had dropped, looking like holes in a Scrabble board.

  Hawke felt like the last man alive, and to ease the feeling he played the light around until he found Vasco, who sat touching his head.

  “This is sick shit,” Vasco said. He was rambling, not making much sense. “It’s not a fair fight, nothing like it. Who would turn the power on like that? Jesus Christ. Sadistic motherfuckers.” He was sitting in a pile of broken tiles, blood glistening on his forehead. He looked up at Hawke, squinting, eyes watery and red rimmed. “Or was it you, huh? Pretty clever, made it look close. Almost got yourself killed. You’re upping the stakes.”

  “Get a grip,” Hawke said. Adrenaline flooded through him. “This entire thing was set up from the beginning, don’t you see that? We’ve been three steps behind all day. Someone is fucking with us, playing some kind of sick game, and it’s just getting started.”

  Vasco stared at him, wiped his face with a palm. It came away bloody. “This is your fault,” he said. “Another train comes through here, I should throw you back on those tracks.”

  Hawke heard Young stirring and put the light on her. She sat up and blinked back at him, concrete dust in her hair and the familiar guarded look on her face, and he was overwhelmed with rage. She knew more, much more about Weller and Doe and Eclipse and the server farm in North Carolina, and he was going to get it out of her.

  The overhead lights blinked back on, buzzing softly, washing the platform with light. Hawke glanced up and stuck the flashlight in his back pocket. He had been wasting time, but no more. Nothing would stop him, nothing. His anger was spilling over now, coursing through him. He grabbed Young by the arm and yanked her to her feet. Her arm was like a child’s, small and delicate. She was not much more than half his size, and he wasn’t a large man. His grip was too hard. She winced and tried to get away, but he pulled her in closer. He was gritting his teeth.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he shouted as she tried to turn her face away from him. “What is it about Jim? What else wasn’t he telling me?”

  The shaking began in Young’s legs and moved up her body until she began to hunch against him like someone who had been gut punched. “He made me promise … I can’t say any more—”

  “He brought me in for a reason. I want to know why. He lied to you, lied to all of us. He never gave a damn about you, Anne, and you let him use you and then throw you away. You think he’s trying to find you right now? Searching the city for you? I doubt it.”

  The look on Young’s face was fear mixed with shame; she was crying hard, shaking her head. “No,” she said. “No.” Vasco had gotten to his feet and was saying something, but Hawke barely listened; the need for answers was burning through him.

  “He’s a part of this, isn’t he? It’s some kind of fucked-up revenge? Is that it?” He pushed harder, a torturer pressing on the wound. “Maybe you’re still working for Eclipse; maybe you’re a part of this, too. Did they put you at Conn.ect as a mole, Anne? Keep an eye on Jim, report on his every move?”

  “You have no idea, no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “But you fell in love with him. They didn’t know that, did they? That baby was his, wasn’t it? Was he even with you when you lost it? Did he know? He slept with you when he felt like it, ignored you when he didn’t, and he didn’t even care enough to let you in on his biggest secret?”

  “He was protecting me!” she screamed suddenly, yanking her arm free and shoving Hawke away. “He thought they’d come after me, too, if they knew.”

  Young looked between him and Vasco, blinking against the light, her porcelain shell shattered now, and what was left was raw and glistening. Hawke was breathing hard. He felt dirty from what he had just done.

  “Jim’s the cause of all this,” Hawke said. “He set it off somehow. He was trying to get her back. Through any means necessary.”

  Young shook her head. “No,” she said. “He brought you in because he wanted you to tell the world about it, about what they’ve done and what it could mean. He wanted to expose them, shut them down, and he thought your connections to Anonymous and your work as a journalist would help.”

  “That’s not all he wanted, is it? Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “He didn’t trust you enough to let you all the way in. He was suspicious of everyone. At first, I thought he was paranoid, seeing signs of being followed online, through the streets. He though
t it was Eclipse monitoring his every move. He thought they were going to make him disappear, destroy the evidence. He was wrong. Eclipse wasn’t after Jim then, and they aren’t after him now. It’s nobody you can see doing this, nothing physical. It’s not even human. I think she’s tracking him. She’s tracking all of us. Doe. She wants us all dead. She wants everyone dead.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Young said. “I swear, I don’t. But she could get into everything: city networks, police response, emergency services alerts, military weaponry, cameras, building security and systems. Even medical and property records. Anything with an Internet connection and a chip can be hacked and controlled. Even the police could have shoot-to-kill instructions fed to them. Nobody would have a clue what’s really going on. She could fake records, recordings, even voices. She controls the message.”

  People’s entire lives were accessible through their devices: where they were every moment of the day, where they lived, their passwords, bank accounts, personal files. New York was the worst place to be, Hawke thought, a city like this, confined, full of technology, full of machines, advanced networks all working together, millions of people crammed into a few city blocks. It would be easy to cause a panic. Panic was a human emotion, driven by fear. It would be useful to an emotionless enemy that wanted to eliminate the herd, like wolves running circles around sheep, driving them into close quarters before moving in for the kill.

  All this, from a program? It still seemed too incredible to believe. But it wasn’t possible that a terrorist group had pulled off such a coordinated attack, no matter how organized or well funded they were. Anonymous couldn’t have done it, either. Nobody could have, unless they had literally unlimited resources, unlimited manpower. Hawke had known that from the beginning; he just hadn’t wanted to face it.