In red paint someone had written PLEASE HELP US!
Around him, farther away, other residential buildings were burned-out shells. Glass broken. Smoke blackened. Like old photographs of Berlin after World War II. It was night, and the city lay dark. Only a few pockets of light were visible across the vast Manhattan skyline. The effect was surreal.
“Looks like the city is running on generators,” Charlotte said. “Power and lights for only a few.”
Below him, First Avenue was empty. He gazed north. For fifty blocks, not a single car. Machine-gun fire sounded somewhere to the west. The reddish hue of a large fire painted the horizon in the vicinity of Central Park.
It was the apocalypse, and Parker was about to touch down in the middle of it.
“I need a weapon,” Parker said. “Fast.”
The car began its descent. Through the front glass, Parker could see the tramway station quickly approaching. The station appeared empty, two large concrete slabs with a giant conveyor wheel that wound the metal guide wire of the tram. The tram was the only thing moving, bound to attract someone’s notice. And whoever it was, Parker was pretty sure it would be worse than guards.
“I’m getting you a weapon,” Selberg said. “There’s a furniture store on the corner of Fifty-Ninth and First Avenue. There’s an office in the back of the store. I’m sending you a weapon there now.”
“Got it,” Parker said. In the distance, he heard the rumble of a truck engine. Two blocks north, a pickup turned the wrong way down First Avenue, tires squealing on the pavement and the engine roaring as the truck accelerated toward the tram station. Three men sat in the rear gripping onto the sides of the pickup, machine guns slung over their shoulders. “Just hope I can make it there in one piece. Got some company. Where is Clayton?”
“I’m looking for him now,” Selberg said. “He hasn’t made contact.”
“Is he in the system?”
“Should be. But it was a rough landing for both of you,” Selberg said. “I tried to synchronize your arrival together, but I don’t know, I lost him somewhere.”
The tram slowed as it reached the station. The pickup was only a block away and moving fast. Parker wasn’t going to get out of the car in time.
“Can you open the doors of the car?” Parker said.
“One sec,” Selberg replied. A moment later, the double doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss. Outside air flooded in. The ground was twenty feet below. Parker steadied himself for an instant, then pushed off hard from the opposite wall of the tram. He ran the length of the car, then launched himself into space, the movement of the car propelling him forward. The concrete platform rushed up to meet him and he slammed down hard. He rolled forward to keep his momentum and save his joints from absorbing the bone-shattering impact. He skidded to a painful stop.
Parker stood and moved quickly down a stairwell that led from the platform to the sidewalk below. He was at the edge of a small park lined with benches and burned out streetlamps. Behind, a row of storefronts stretched the block of First Avenue. Most of them were small spaces, no room to hide, nothing more than dead ends. Around the corner, he saw the familiar marquee of a movie theater, the black lettering advertising for some forgotten movie dangling from the signage at odd angles.
The weapon Selberg had sent Parker was on the opposite side of the street, toward the pickup truck. Parker would never make it. Instead, he turned and sprinted toward the theater, the only place large enough for him to hide inside. He pushed open a shattered glass door, passed by the empty ticket seller’s window and entered the front lobby. The area was littered with dried leaves and trash, which had blown in over the years from the open doorway. A few yellowing movie posters lay behind dusty wall compartments. The concession glass was broken into sharp fragments, the racks beneath empty except for a handful of dead roaches.
Behind him, the pickup drove onto the curb and screeched to a halt, the men in back piling out. He could see them closely now. Their faces were covered with white and red war paint, vertical strips just beneath their eyes and down the length of their cheeks. Each carried a machine gun, belts of ammunition over their shoulders, and wore military-style camo pants and black boots laced up past the ankle. One of the men, his hair chopped into a shaggy Mohawk, wore a torn white T-shirt clearly stained with blood.
Parker had no idea who these guys were, but he had no intention of any further introductions to the tenants of this system. Charlotte had been right.
“I need a weapon, fast,” Parker said as he moved away from the door. “I’m in some kind of movie theater, just off First Avenue.”
“The Apple Cineplex,” Charlotte said. “Do we have any drops there?”
“Checking now,” Selberg said. “Hang on.”
Several long hallways branched off from the main atrium toward each of the individual screens. Parker chose one at random, running down the length of the hall and through a door into the blackness of a theater. He found utter darkness. The air was hot and stank of mildew. He could sense the rows of chairs sitting vacant around him, waiting for patrons who would never come.
Parker heard the distinct shuffle of feet against carpet. The sound was somewhere ahead of him. Something moving in the theater. Something in here with him. He lowered himself to the ground, his fists clenching together. Outside, somewhere in the hallway, he heard the low murmur of voices of the men.
In the blackness, a sudden light flared up, bursting with such intensity it temporarily blinded Parker. There was a rush of movement. Something brushed past him and headed for the door. Parker knuckled his eyes, trying to rub out the flares of white light that still floated in his retinas. He heard the theater door slam open, then running feet.
A moment later, a woman screamed.
Blinking away the last of the floating light from his eyes, Parker moved quickly and quietly to the doorway of the theater. Cautiously, he peered out into the hall. About thirty yards away, the men from the truck had cornered a woman. She must have been hiding in the theater and Parker had scared her outside, right into that group of psychos. She was wearing filthy, oversized chinos and a gray T-shirt a size too small. The men each held lanterns and had spread out forming a line, like the open mouth of a net moving toward a cornered fish.
“You been hiding in here this whole time?” the Mohawk asked. “Pretty thing like you?”
The woman backed slowly away from him. “Please, don’t.”
“We been looking for a little fuck toy like you,” Mohawk said. “Gets real lonely out there. Getting tired of those lady boys we got chained up under the bridge. Could use some real, genuine pussy.”
The woman moved to run back toward Parker and the theater. She made a half-step before one of the men knocked out her leg. She fell face first, her nose shattering on the ground, blood pouring onto the carpet. She grunted in pain, her hand going to her face. She rolled over on her side and curled into a ball. Mohawk put the lantern and his machine gun on the ground and advanced, his hand unbuckling his belt.
The woman saw him coming and whimpered, sliding away on the floor, her hand going up protectively.
“How are we coming with that weapon?” Parker whispered. “Got a situation here.”
“Got a gun for you,” Selberg said. “Revolver, hidden inside the cash register at the concession stand.”
The cash register was on the other side of the men.
That gun might as well have been in New Jersey, because there was no way Parker would make it past them without getting killed. He might have had a chance against the four in unarmed combat, but they all had machine guns. It would be like jumping into a wood chipper.
Mohawk kicked the woman hard in the stomach. She gasped with the violence of the blow and cried out. He turned back to one of the other men. “Check the theater she came out of. See if she’s got any friends who can join the party.”
One man nodded, reluctantly turned away from the woman on the ground, and began to walk toward Parker’s
position. He was a big man, heavy in the chest and arms, with a thick beard and long hair tucked beneath a baseball cap. He held a lantern in his left hand, the machine gun in his right. That gave Parker a slight advantage. In a fight, the man couldn’t fire as accurately with just one hand. He would have to pause to drop the lantern. That might give Parker an extra second. With a combination of surprise and luck, he might have a chance.
Parker retreated into the shadows of the theater. He felt along a section of seats, crouched down between the rows, and waited.
The theater door opened and a beam of light scattered away the darkness. The bearded man moved sloppily. His size and his gun made him overconfident, and he walked without fear. He held the lantern over his head and scanned the rows of seats. He walked toward the front of the theater, giving his back to Parker. Parker crept out from behind the seats, moved quickly toward the man, and wrapped a forearm around his neck. Parker pulled tight, instantly cutting off the man’s air. With his free hand, Parker gripped the machine gun, holding it in place. The man lurched backward, throwing Parker off-balance. Their two bodies fell to the ground. Parker wrapped his legs around the stranger, keeping him controlled, as he pulled the choke even tighter. The lantern crashed to the floor, the glass breaking.
A human can go without oxygen for a frighteningly short period of time, especially under stress. And quickly, he felt his prey go limp. Parker kept applying pressure until Charlotte said quietly, “He’s done.”
Parker rolled the dead man off him, then reached for the machine gun on the floor. It was an old style British Sten, short and stubby with a long magazine column stretching horizontally from the side. Most of the weapons in the system were smuggled in from the outside. Parker held the Sten at waist level and slowly moved from the theater. In the hall, a man laughed and cheered.
The woman screamed.
Carefully, Parker peeked around the corner. The woman lay on her back, crab like, her legs and arms in the air, desperately kicking at the three men who circled her like jackals after meat. One of the men feinted, sidestepped a kick, then grabbed the collar of the woman’s shirt. He pulled down hard and the shirt ripped. The woman swung her body like a pendulum and swept her leg along the ground. She caught the man in the back of the knee, his leg buckled, and he dropped to the ground. Immediately she pulled herself upright and elbowed the man hard in the face. There was an audible clunk of bone on bone and the man’s nose collapsed.
The man cursed and fell backward. In an instant the woman was up on her feet, carefully moving, she surprised Parker as her hands came up in a boxer’s stance. The fun was over. The men’s smiles were gone, their expressions stone. They weren’t playing around anymore. The guys were going to beat her and then rape her.
“No guards to worry about here,” Charlotte said. “If you’re going to do it, take them all out and be done with it. Don’t hesitate.”
Parker stepped from around the corner into the hall.
The men had their backs turned to him, but the woman glimpsed the movement. Parker’s appearance startled her, and she turned her attention from Mohawk and his friends and stared wide-eyed at Parker. Mohawk saw her reaction and paused, then slowly followed the line of her eyes, turning around and spotting Parker.
“How you doing?” Parker said politely. “Am I interrupting?”
Mohawk recovered his composure. He didn’t move or flinch. His hands stayed down, inches from the Sten slung over his shoulder. “How you doing, friend? Passing through?”
“Well, that depends. I’m looking for someone.”
“Who’s that?”
“Name on the outside is Bobby Chan,” Parker said. “Not sure what he goes by here.”
Mohawk licked his lips. The fingers of his shooting hand moved slowly, like the tentacles of a sea anemone caught in an ocean current. His friends slowly moved apart from each other. Parker could still catch them all in one sweep of the machine gun, but they were trying to flank him.
“Name is familiar,” Mohawk said. “Let me think.”
“Don’t think too long. My trigger finger has a short timer when it comes to bullshit.”
Mohawk actually managed a smile. “You really think you can get all three of us in time? You picked the wrong fight.”
“What’s it matter to you? I’ll kill you first. So I don’t expect you’ll much care after that.”
“You must be new here,” Mohawk said. “You think you can kill me?”
Parker was so focused on Mohawk, he barely registered the woman. In a flash, she sprang forward, grabbed the nearest soldier by the neck, buried a knee in his back, and flipped him backward to the ground. She tore the machine gun from his shoulder, buried her foot in his neck, and spun toward Mohawk. She fired once, accurately, putting a single bullet in the man’s leg. Mohawk grunted in pain and fell to a knee. Forced into action, Parker turned and opened up with the Sten on the third man. The machine gun bucked wildly in his hands, a spray of bullets tearing the man open.
The woman dug the heel of her boot once more into the neck of the man on the ground, then shot him in the head.
“Jesus,” Selberg said. “I like this girl.”
Parker turned the Sten toward Mohawk, ready to finish it. Mohawk faced him, eyes narrow, ready to die. Blood seeped through his pant leg, forming a pool on the ground. Parker’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“No!” the order came from the woman. “Don’t kill him. That’s what he wants.”
She came up behind Mohawk, yanked the machine gun from his shoulder, then kneed him hard in his bullet wound. Mohawk grunted in pain. She grabbed a handful of his hair, then pulled him backward, almost lifting him off his feet, and dragged him across the hall to a thick metal bannister. He reached up to push her away and she brought the butt end of her rifle down on his face. His cheek split open instantly, blood pouring out. Ignoring the injury, she bent down and expertly tossed him. From the pocket of his cargo pants, she pulled a set of handcuffs.
She held them up. “You going to use these on me?”
“Fuck you.”
She struck him another blow with the butt of the Sten, then with the handcuffs, she chained the man’s wrist to the bannister. Mohawk had a machete strapped to his back. She pulled the weapon from him, turned toward Mohawk’s dead partner, raised the blade up over her head and brought it down on the dead man’s neck. She did this again with each of the dead. Mohawk watched her, his face registering no surprise.
“I’m going to go outside, and I’m going to set my friends free from those cages,” she said. “And I’m going to tell them you’re in here. They’re going to set to work on you with metal shears. Cut you up into so many little pieces they’ll be able to use you as parade confetti.”
“They kill me, I’m going to come back for you,” Mohawk said. His voice sounded tough, but Parker could see fear in those eyes.
Parker checked his watch. He was on a tight schedule and wanted to spend as little time as possible in this terrible world. Whatever happened here was none of his business. He turned away and began to walk back down the hall.
“Hey,” the woman called out. Parker kept walking. He wasn’t here to make friends. Just get in and get out. Focus on the job. “You’re from the outside, aren’t you?”
Parker kept walking.
“I know where he is,” she called out to him.
Parker stopped. He turned back toward the woman.
“The guy you’re looking for,” she said. “I know him. I can take you to him.”
“Where is he?”
The woman laughed and stood. “Nothing is free.”
“What do you want?”
“I asked you before, you’re from the outside?”
Parker was curious about how much these people know about their reality. Most prisoners in these systems had no idea. But something seemed different here. Something was off. “What do you mean, outside?”
“From somewhere other than here,” she said. “This pla
ce.”
Parker shook his head. “I don’t do deals with unknowns.”
“You won’t last a minute out there without me.”
“Last I checked, I saved you.”
“But what you don’t know is that we have about four minutes before those guys you killed, they come back here looking for us.” The woman smiled. “And I think you don’t have a clue how this world works or how to deal with that.”
“She’s probably right,” Selberg said. “This is a totally unknown system.”
Parker sighed. “So what do you want?”
The woman checked her watch. “We can discuss my terms on the move. But right now, we need to get out of here.”
They left Mohawk chained to the pole and headed back onto the street. The pickup was parked up on the curb. It was a battered and rusted-out old truck, with metal grates over the windows and machine-gun ports in the doors. A human skull served as a hood ornament. The woman went to the truck, popped open the door, and looked inside.
“Keys are here,” she said. “Let’s roll.”
“Why would they leave the keys in the ignition?”
“Because everyone knows who owns it.”
The woman sat behind the wheel, and the big truck rumbled to life. She revved the engine, which emitted a massive resonant sound. An engine way too big for this to be stock. Someone had built this truck from scratch; a vehicle modified for war.
Parker joined the woman inside.
“My name’s Blake,” she said.
Parker slammed shut the passenger door without responding.
“Okay, then,” Blake said. She gunned the engine and powered off the curb back onto First Avenue. She headed toward the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge. The two-level, cantilever structure stretched out over the dirty green waters of the river, spanning Roosevelt Island, before vanishing into a wall of fog that seemed to engulf the entire eastern edge of the island.
They smashed through a series of blue NYPD wooden barriers that formed a semicircle around the base of the bridge. The bridge itself rose above them, beginning in a series of stone archways that pushed the roadway higher and higher as it headed out across the river. Fixed into the side of the stone was a winch, a thick cable wire pulled taut, that bore the weight of cages holding people suspended off the side of the bridge a hundred feet above them.
The Memory Agent Page 22