by Chris Weitz
Getting a real deathy vibe here.
I mean, there’s always a chance you’re gonna get your ass killed in this place; but it feels like things are particularly coming to a head at this particular moment. I wish we could just call it a day and head back to the Square to lick our wounds.
But Chapel says that if we don’t get control of the situation fast, there’ll only be more soldiers on their way, and the next time it’ll be a full-on invasion.
The gist of it seems to be that Chapel and his Resistance buddies have infected the rest of the world with new strains of the virus they got out of us, me and my peeps, on the Ronald Reagan. Strains that they can’t cure without access to our blood to make serum. The Resistance’s idea is to keep curing and infecting the world in perpetuity, with new sources of virus from the citizens of Newest York and the rest of the United States of Post-Apocalyptic America. Or at least, they’ll keep doing it until some kind of treaty can be signed. Keep them on a biological leash. We’re gonna make this a new country of refugees and castoffs and escaped debtors and plague kids.
Our chief export? Our bodily fluids, to make serum, to keep the rest of the world healthy. Gross.
But the only thing that’s going to keep the Reconstruction from tracking us down, imprisoning us, and hooking us up to pumps like dairy cows is the threat of the football. Which Evan is holding hostage in some cloud chamber up on the billionth floor.
So up the Chrysler Building it is.
We head down Forty-Second from Grand Central, under the green street overpass, trailing a herd of freed slaves. Some come from the Square but many from all over, and most of them will be absolutely zero use to us in a fight. Tired, traumatized, and hungry, they’re following us for no other reason than that they don’t know what else to do. In terms of able bodies, we’ve got me, Peter, Chapel, Jeff, Kath, the twins, Theo, and Rab. Carolyn and the Three Ashleys from our tribe have picked up guns from the dead commandos. That’s about a dozen guns against however many Evan has left up there.
Can’t wait them out, though. Kath says they have enough food to last for months. Besides, Evan can get into some major, world-changing shit in a heck of a lot less time than that.
We leave the freed girls outside, under the command of Carolyn and the Ashleys. If any rescue party comes for Evan, they’ll try to fend them off. And we go in through the formerly shining doors, now blotchily oxidized.
Rab comes up to me in the art deco hallway of the lobby, which is wall-to-wall marble, with slashes of bronze and burly murals.
Rab: “This elevator idea is insane.”
Me: “Have you got a better idea?”
Rab: “Yes. Going home. Letting the big boys handle this. It’ll be a complete massacre if we go up there. They’re going to see us coming. They have half an hour to point their machine guns just the right way.”
Me: “So you just want the Reconstruction to come in and sort things out, is that right?”
Rab: “That’s absolutely right.”
Me: “And what happens to us?”
Rab: “We’ll be all right. We’ll talk our way out of it. You can’t think that lunatic”—he means Chapel—“and his bunch of anarchists are going to make anything better!”
Me: “You want me to trust the government.”
Rab is desperate, pleading. His big gray-green eyes well with tears.
Rab: “Trust me. Trust me, Donna. I have seen all sides of this thing. And all I want is for you and me to be together. Your friends can come, too. I can arrange it. I know I can.”
Me: “My friends? Even Jefferson?”
Rab pauses. Nods, as if he’s debating with himself and has just come to an agreement.
Rab: “If I had wanted Jefferson to die, all I would have had to do is follow orders.”
I realize he’s telling the truth. He tries to take my hand. I pull it away.
Rab: “I did it for you. Or rather, I didn’t do it. For you. For you to be able to choose who you want to be with. Choose me. Please. And we all live. We can go someplace safe and decent and peaceful. Come back with me.”
I look at his beautiful face; I dream back to the time in Cambridge, quiet afternoons on the river, lazy mornings in Nevile’s Court, the sun streaming in through the basement window. Some part of me plays a little movie of Rab and me, home again, safe and sound and happy.
Me: “That’s just it. Rab, I’m not safe and I’m not decent and I’m not peaceful. This is me. This is my city. Our city. And nobody is going to take it from us. You can’t understand that because you don’t belong to anybody but yourself. You’re not part of anything. That’s why I can’t love you.” I watch the impact on his face. It knocks the tears loose. “I’m sorry. I thought for a while I did. And I’m grateful for the time we had. It helped me then. But if you can’t help all of us now, you had better go.”
So he does. He nods and makes his way sadly out of the building.
THERE’S A SORT OF giant metal Ferris wheel that looks like it runs one of the elevators. It’s big enough for three people to walk upward in an endless curved staircase, and others to help turn it using handholds on the rim of the big circle. The revolutions turn a gear that transmits friction to the elevator cables. It’s not exactly efficient, but that’s not a concern when you have slave labor, which the Uptowners did. Now it’s abandoned, and the Uptowners made the mistake of leaving it intact.
I turn to Gamma, the lead survivor of the Ghosts.
“We’re going to need you to power this.”
“Your wish is my command, Lord. You go up to battle demons in the clouds. It is fitting.”
“Look,” I say. “You’re not a genie, and I’m not the Second Coming. If we lose up there…” I gesture vaguely toward the ceiling. “They’re going to be after you. Understand? So you can’t do this because I said so. You have to do this of your own free will.”
He looks at me, uncertain. Then, “Okay.”
“What’s your name?” I say. “Your real name.”
Again a pause. “Edward.”
“Okay, Edward. Take it from me. Nobody and nothing else is the final authority except you. People are just people. We’re all we’ve got to go on. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I don’t know that the Ghosts will have enough energy to actually get the elevator up there. But then the girls we freed start grabbing ahold of the wheel, handhold or no.
“We’ll get it done,” says Cowgirl. “Many hands, light work, that sort of shit. NP.”
I notice a vacuum of silence nearby and see Rab walking off.
Things are looking up.
As we finish gearing up, I go over to Donna.
“You okay?”
Of course I don’t really mean that. I mean, What just happened?
She just looks up and kisses me. “I love you,” she says.
“I love you.” Natural as breathing.
“Good,” she says. “Now let’s go save the world again.”
IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE THEY’RE SO STUPID.
About half an hour ago, my bro Monster says he’s watching the needle on the elevator dial and it’s moving up. Really slowly, of course, because the damn elevator is heavy and there’s only so much the hamster wheel can do to lift it. That means that there’s plenty of time to prepare for them.
It’s definitely not my dudes in the elevator—they would know better and signal ahead of time. It’s got to be Jefferson and his assorted half-breeds, sexual deviants, and losers.
How do I know? It just makes sense. Because I realize now that not only am I God’s favorite show, I am his favorite person. And he is shaping my triumph. Now is the part where I beat back the mutated hordes and put the crown on my own head.
It’s all working out! The champagne is chilling, the nukes are warming up, and my enemies are literally delivering themselves to me in a box.
The only disappointment is that last part. It’s a tiny bit of a bummer that it’s going to be so easy to kill Jeffer
son, after all this time. I briefly toy with the idea of engineering some kind of final showdown, like we take them captive and walk them off the silver eagles one by one so I can watch them fall all the way to the ground and hear the screams. We could even record it to play back whenever we want later. Put it up on YouTube once we get Wi-Fi back.
But I decide to be reasonable. So we just set up the flamethrower in front of the elevator, ready to incinerate them the moment the doors open. It’s straightforward, a little blunt, maybe, but it’s got a certain style. Maybe we can put them out before they’re totally gone. That could be fun. I tell my boys to get the fire extinguishers.
I have the flamethrower in my hands, a little tongue of fire licking upward from the spout, when I hear the DING! of the elevator finally arriving. I have to shush the bros, who have all gathered around to see what it’ll be like. Monster and the boys have their guns ready in case Jefferson and the others escape the elevator while they’re on fire, and try to hug us to death or something.
As soon as the doors are half open, I give it the juice, and a chameleon-tongue of flame leaps out and into the elevator. By the time the doors are totally open, the elevator is engulfed, an aquarium of fire.
But I don’t hear any screams, which is a letdown.
Then, as the flames die down, leaving only a few scraps licking at the corners, I realize that there’s nobody inside.
That’s when the grenade skitters into the landing and bounces off the back wall. I jettison the flamethrower and hit the ground just as it explodes, splashing me with what’s left of Monster.
Looking up, I see that about half my guys are down, dead or writhing, but the others are firing back toward the Downtowners, who tricked us, I realize, into paying attention to the elevator while they legged it up sixty-seven flights. We might have had somebody guarding the stairway, but everyone wanted to watch our enemies get set on fire. I guess that’s the downside to enabling a culture of sadism. People lose focus.
Time for a quick assessment of the position. About half my men are down, but the rest, perhaps aware of the fact that they’ll be fighting for their lives, are up and gunning. An unknown number of enemies, but they’ve just hiked sixty-seven floors, so they have to be pretty tired.
Somewhere out there, Jefferson.
The flamethrower is out of commission, the tank punctured by shrapnel. The football, however, seems to have made it through. I grab hold of the leather handle of the briefcase and crawl to a side door to the club kitchen, avoiding the trouble.
They’ve shut off the generator, so the kitchen is dark and the fridge is silent. Before anything else, I open the fridge and take out a bottle of Cristal. Smash it open on the counter edge. I realize that I’ve made a mistake. God just gave me the thumbs-down on the latest plot twist, like how could I just flambé my archenemy?
So while the sounds of battle ring and pound from outside, I raise the bottle and chug. It’s still cold, and as the champagne slides down my throat, I think to myself—it’s a moment of weakness, I admit—of how cool everything could have been, how awesome if only Jefferson and the rest of those losers hadn’t gotten mixed up in my story.
What if it’s actually Jefferson? What if it’s his story? That would be so lame.
Then, as the buzz of the champagne sets in, I remember the crushed Adderall I still have in my back pocket. I hold the baggie right to my nose—no time to be delicate—and huff it all in one breath like a sob.
Then the Adderall hits and I get a surge of energy, triumphant and creative, and I feel much better.
The big guy still loves me. That’s why I’m still alive.
Of course it’s me. Of course.
Now I know what I have to do.
I AM NOT EXACTLY INTO FIGHTING, but the fact that I am gay does not prevent me from kicking ass. As a matter of fact, I probably had to fight more than most kids. So when I see Chapel go down, my first instinct is not to run to him or to run away but to kill the guy who shot him. Which, you know, I do.
The rooms of this crazy old nightclub or whatever are filling up with smoke. I duck round a corner and fire into a mural wall, behind which I figure he’s hiding. A moment later, I hear a groan, which is good enough for me. I lean over Chapel.
“Leg,” he says. I drag him to some cover. I undo the straps from my pack and make a tourniquet, cinch it tight.
“I’m fine. Go help the others.”
“Nope,” I say. “Not leaving you alone. Last time I did that, you disappeared on me.”
“I’m here to stay.”
I hold his hand to my cheek, then return to the fray.
FIRE AND MOVE. WE CRAB-WALK through acrid smoke, the painted clouds all around us. I get the drop on an Uptowner, coughing as he pops in a magazine, and fire a burst with my own gun. He disappears into the haze.
Then, before I can react, another comes screaming out of that same smoke, baseball bat raised. But as the kid swings, the bat meets Jefferson’s sword and splits in two. The nub of the bat clatters musically across the floor, and the Uptowner turns and runs.
Finally, it’s only us. Me, Jeff, Kath, Theo, and the twins peer through the smoke; Peter is over by a prone Chapel. I notice a channel of clear, cold air through the smoke, a draught from a pair of tall paneled French windows open to a wide terrace.
We walk through the threshold, and beyond the terrace, I can see the silvery nape of a giant eagle gargoyle jutting out from the corner of the building. And poised on the head of the eagle, against the city far below, is Evan.
He’s holding the football to his chest like a baby. He looks deranged, his eyes wide.
Evan: “This is good. This is a good twist.”
We walk out onto the terrace, rifles up, a half-dozen barrels pointed at him.
Evan: “You should know that if I go, the world goes with me.”
Jefferson puts down his gun and his sword, steps forward.
Jefferson: “What do you mean, Evan?”
Evan: “I mean, Jefferson—nice to see you, by the way—that I’ve entered the launch codes for an attack on China and Russia. The nukes are warming up now. Fifteen minutes and they launch. You kill me, and the football falls sixty-seven floors. No chance of turning off those silos. Bye-bye, everything.”
I get a flash of the puppets and their shadows on the screen. And I realize, to Evan, we’re all just shadows.
I figure if there is anyone who could do what he’s threatening, it’s him.
Up high like this, it feels like the cold wind wants to tear the flesh off your bones. I see the clusters of building tops all around, birds wheeling in the distance.
Me: “What do you want?”
Evan: “What do I want? I want a lot of things. Mostly right now I want to keep living. But in terms of what I think you can give me… I want him.”
He points at Jefferson.
Evan: “You and me, Jefferson. You try to take the football. I try to throw you to your death. Just you and me, no weapons. Seem fair?”
Jefferson: “What if you win?”
I jerk my head toward him. I can’t believe he’s considering it.
Evan: “If I win? I don’t know. Then I figure out what I want next. I don’t think you’re in much of a position to bargain, though.”
Me: “Don’t—”
But he steps forward, up and onto the silver neck of the eagle.
HE GOES FOR IT, LIKE I FIGURED he would, and steps up onto the gargoyle. Time for the big showdown.
Except not. I get the club out from the waistband at the small of my back and bring it down nicely across his temple, and he crumples on the metal neck of the gargoyle, barely holding on. I shrug off the football to let it sit behind me and slip out the boot knife. I hold the point to his neck.
Now what? Well, I’ve marginally improved my bargaining position, and I’m definitely enjoying the prospect of beheading Jefferson.
Sure, I’ve sacrificed a lot of credibility. But I wasn’t lying about the football.
The nukes are all revved up! Billions of people don’t know that they’re toast. And nobody can stop it without the codes.
The roundness of it! The closure. I remember the moment we met, a bulletproof Plexiglas bus window between us, me with a pig on a leash, him speaking for his tribe in place of his older and smarter brother.
Now here he is, held in my arms, just where I wanted him all this time, with my knife at his throat.
I look down to figure out how best to start cutting—by the jawline? across the Adam’s apple?—when some other guy hits me.
Head buzzing, I register somebody I haven’t seen before, another one of Jefferson’s brown people, almost as good-looking as me. He knocks me back again and away from Jefferson before I have time to react.
I hear someone scream, “Rob!” or something.
The guy has both hands on my wrist, trying to keep me from using my knife, which frees me to bash him in the face with the other hand. Meanwhile, he’s shouting to Jefferson to get the football. Funny accent.
We start rolling off the edge of the gargoyle, and he has to let go of my arm so that he can stop himself. So I stab him in the chest and use his body to push myself up, which drives the blade deeper into him.
He’s not dead, though, and it looks like he has a knife of his own—a little letter-opener-looking thing. He jabs me in the leg, and I fall to one knee. He kicks me in the stomach, and I feel myself lose purchase. I realize with a sick feeling that I’m about to go over the edge.
It can’t be. It can’t be. This is my story.
I can’t die. God! I can’t get canceled!
I’m slipping farther. I grab at the bronze of the gargoyle, but my hand is slick with blood, and then I’m falling…
But there’s some consolation. I grab ahold of my attacker’s leg as gravity sucks at me.
He falls down with a bump on the metal plating of the eagle and then, finally, painfully, we go over.
We are both flying now, floating down toward the city. For an insane moment, he looks me in the eye and we see each other, two souls in free fall, and I almost feel, although we’ve never met except to kill each other, as though we might be friends, in another life, if I were a different person.