King's County

by James Carrick

  "So, who are you? Are you from A level?"

  "My name is Galton-Smith. I am from A level."

  A long pause ensued. I used his trick. He broke first,

  "She’s going to take you home now. That's what you want. But we expect you back here - 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. We need you, John."

  *

  Qim was chatty on the elevator ride down but I wasn't having it. Every word out of her mouth was like bitter poison. The elevator was a hot stove. By the time we walked out into the foyer, my head was pounding.

  I walked ahead much faster than normal. When she matched my pace, I jogged then sprinted. Quickly around the corner, I ran another 50m and turned again. I'd lost her. If she had found me I think I would have done something terrible.

  I knew the way now and found it familiar. A narrow, unremarkable alley led to a long, mostly empty street that sloped down to some green spaces, then the highway. The waterfront lay beyond.

  It was past sundown when I arrived at the kiosk. The locals were out. A clique of garishly dressed jugglers loitered near the ever present skateboarders. The rest were mostly the boring, interchangeable art bums or downtown busywork drones, all of them wandering the boardwalk in little groups, grazing their nightly fix.

  I got my beer: half a liter, self cooling with double-lined insulation, a self closing wide mouth spout. The can was spearmint green with subtle red pinstripes.

  It was delicious, cold, perfectly sweet and bitter. I drank it quickly while standing there and ordered another that I took to a nearby bench.

  The mango guy flew by on his old bicycle. His storage box rattled loose and dragged, spilling yellow-orange fruit slices behind him. He pedaled on undeterred, frantic. Those in his path jumped aside but the jugglers were distracted and he hit one of them fully in the chest with the front basket.

  They recovered, laughing, obviously unhurt. Mango guy’s coat was ruined, though, torn down the back. His bike was mangled with both wheels and the handlebars bent. He tried walking the bike but gave up, grabbed it by the frame, and spun around to hurl it into the water. The crowd watching cheered.

  More skateboarders came down the boardwalk from the same direction as mango man. They dressed in tight fitting blue, black and green clothes, the opposite of those in red and yellow. They came fast, hunched down on their boards.

  The mango man was still playing up to the crowd. He tossed his ruined coat into the water next and started doing a strange dance hopping on one leg while the juggler threw his pins in the air.

  The blue skateboarders came onto the scene in a pack and encircled the mango man. They tried to pick him up, presumably to throw him in the water, but were unable to get a good hold of him squirming in his loose outfit. They succeeded anyway, making the poor man trip backwards, landing in the water with a loud splash and him screaming for help.

  The red and yellow skaters took this as their cue. They rushed over swinging their boards like clubs and knocked out half the blues with the first volley. The blues retreated then rallied and countered as a tight group. They dodged the boards and went low, grabbing red hosed ankles, and flipped their enemies onto their backs.

  Everybody loved it. A close circle of onlookers formed around the battle obscuring my view. They threw their trash into the ring.

  I smelled smoke. It was wood smoke - the side of the kiosk was burning. The lights lining the boardwalk began blinking on and off which quieted but didn't quell the mob. I took this as my sign to leave.

  *

  Once home, I went directly to bed. Dreams came, stronger and more vivid than any before:

  My mother and I walked side by side alongside Mount Olympus. At times I held her strong, leathery smooth hand; for miles we walked like this. She stopped at a rivulet of clear water to drink. She stood after drinking, facing me, looking into my eyes. She was a thousand years old. Her face folded into a million wrinkles as she reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a roasted banana slug wrapped in a broad green leaf charred black at the edges. She took half of it in one bite and chewed.

  In my dream I slept, lying out in the open below Olympus on a thick bed of moss. Days passed. I turned on my side hardening into a tight, safe form. The moss grew to fit around me. The moles and worms diligently guarded me while the chip slowed and maintained my blood. The soft office worker clothes I wore rotted into pieces and blew away; my army boots remained. I starved, my body fed on itself, the skin tightened around the chip showing its rectangular outline on my gaunt, naked back.

  Early afternoon clouds gathered and darkened as they collided. From above, deep thunder soothed me deeper into the dream until cold rain dropped onto my nose. Something was off. I was wet and getting wetter. The coldness felt real, threatening.

  I kicked the sheets off. My hand went to my face and felt moisture. I forced my eyes to open.

  Water was dripping onto the bed from a vent in the ceiling. For awhile, I stared at it not knowing what to do. I was still asleep.

  Thunder shook the house hard enough to knock a book off the shelf. I was awake. Still dressed from the day before, I put my boots on and went to find the attic entrance.

  I wanted to find the source of the leak. In the hallway from the ceiling protruded a neat braided black and white cord ending in a polished wooden ball. I pulled it and a stairway unfolded, hundreds of small pieces of finely cut cedar intricately pinned together. It was a marvel of design, the kind I was just starting to understand and appreciate. The stairs took my weight with a slight flex but felt perfectly sound underfoot.

  In the empty attic, I quickly found the problem: A fist sized hole in the roof and below it, a smashed duct. Rain was dribbling in, collecting in the impression from the impact, and dripping down to my bed. My first thought was that it was a meteor that did it, but in the duct I found a jagged piece of alloy of about 300g, weighty in my hand and still warm despite being wet.

  I stuffed my shirt in the hole as a temporary measure. Thunder shook the ladder as I climbed down.

  In the kitchen, another rumbling shook the house. I went to push the button for a meal and another stronger wave hit almost knocking me off my feet. An Earthquake? I went over to the main room’s south facing picture window.

  Columns of black smoke came up from spots downtown. From the nearest, a cluster of semidetached residences, flames were visible. My legs went weak. I fell onto a lacquered black wicker chair and pulled it up close to the glass.

  On silent propulsion, two ground attack fighters cruised at tree top level. They looked more advanced but were similar to the ones I knew. Underneath their flight path at regular intervals erupted debris in red flashes. Seconds later came a familiar thumping sound followed by a rumbling echo.

  The GAF duo then swept the waterfront. The bombs came at shorter intervals. They were demolishing every scrap of it. I watched in a stupor. The realization hit me that some of the larger pieces of debris were bodies.

  I stayed at the window. Another two GAF’s came from over the horizon. Dipping to a lower altitude, they curved around the city and were soon out of sight. The fighters circled around quickly. They were blisteringly fast, and then were heading away from me to the south to disappear again into the low hanging clouds.

  For half a minute there was quiet. I could see most of the populated parts of the city burning but could hear nothing at all. I got up and went to the kitchen and stood there numb for a long moment before remembering to make something to eat. I waited. The house computer said I had no messages.

  The food was ready in a minute but my appetite had disappeared. I just pulled the lid off of the coffee and sat back down. I couldn't drink the coffee either.

  The GAF’s came back, all four, small on the horizon for a mere second, tearing the air at top speed toward me, soon over the roof. A solid wall of sound knocked me off the chair. The picture window shattered with a single intense crack that I felt in my bones.

  Quickly on my feet, I went to the door. The Space Needle had b
een hit. Black and brown smoke obscured the area around it. The fighters swung around to make another pass. They came in, not too low, two on each side. They dumped everything, dozens of bombs in rapid succession in a narrow target zone. I knew the technique: one big hit to shock the target, then the smaller munitions to pulverize what remained.

  The top of the Needle reeled in the sky as the legs burned then buckled. The crown fell onto the land it stood over in a roaring heap of hot dust. I felt the heat, then the burning smell, the dust blew over me and turned to sludge in the steady rain and I saw the fighters in a diamond formation gliding off to the north.

  Back inside, a strong gust blew rain into the open space where the window had been. I went to my room and stared at the shirts folded in the drawer. Pick one... and what else would I need? What else did I have? I grabbed the first one on top: sturdy, long-sleeved and casual, fairly dull and inconspicuous.

  In the kitchen I took a long drink of water and forced down the now cold meal. At the door I looked back. Nothing could be gained by staying here.

  The area around the Needle was in ruins and burning. The only passable route left was through downtown.

  At the entrance to the little neighborhood I stopped to look again. Our quasi-Japanese bungalows were only lightly damaged though well sprinkled with wet ash. No one was outside. Surely some remained inside. Had they all fled? I didn't care to find out.

  Down the hill, down the empty main road to downtown, the burning smell was just as strong. Still no one was around. I saw no one, dead or alive, and heard no distant cries. Around the corner was a broken pipe loudly spilling water out onto the street.

  At the end of that side street, one of the smaller converted tower’s apple orchards burned, 20m above the broken main. A man in a flannel suit came through the alley alongside and stopped at the pooled water to drink.

  Some movement caught my eye, a flicker of gray against the darker gray granite background. Against the sidewalk I could see it clearer, creeping in the light rain of ash from the orchard. The man at the water still drank with both hands scooping it into his mouth.

  The wolf moved in, smoothly in control, confident of the outcome. The man noticed him only at the last instant. The jaws took his ankle and the strong legs dragged backwards jerking the man off his feet, pulling him face down into the gutter.

  He resisted for only seconds. The wolf’s teeth might have injected a poison or maybe a sedative. Maybe the man just fainted.

  The wolf pulled the man out of sight and I took the chance to slip away down the main street.

  Downhill, closer to the water, I could see a stretch of the highway that looked undamaged. I stopped and leaned into a door frame, taking cover while I evaluated what lay below.

  No wolves in sight - or people. I realized that the patch of water showing past the highway was where the boardwalk had been.

  I jogged further to the next side street and got on my stomach to cautiously peer around the corner. This place seemed less dangerous than the main road. Buildings were intact. The sun gently lit the wet street through a decorative array of glass pieces, some old restored corporate art in a tall open atrium. Well fruited, unharvested apple trees lined the block.

  I crawled until I felt safe enough to stand. I kicked a fallen apple while walking and saw a woman’s head crane up over a railing. There were two women, sitting together on a stoop, and they waved me over.

  "You don't remember us," she said. "We know you though." She and her friend laughed.

  "Why don't you sit down with us?" the other said, so I did. They expected me to say something.

  "You’re very quiet aren't you? Wait - Susan, let’s drink the wine now."

  They were decent looking girls, 25 or so, and I’d guess actually thirty-five, forty-ish. I checked out the one who wasn’t Susan while waiting for the wine.

  "Where do you know me from?"

  She laughed, "Oh, uh, from the Space Needle? Where else?"

  "Why is that funny? Never mind. I'm sorry, no, you know it’s gone, right? Destroyed."

  "Yeah, of course. We watched from the roof. Fucking sad, I guess."

  "Time for wine!" Susan returned with a gallon jug of red and three cups. She sat down in a careful, measured sort of way that for a second belied her true age.

  "Do either of you know what’s going on?" I asked. "Why are they killing us?"

  "Here’s yours." Susan handed me a full porcelain mug.

  I set the mug down. "What are we supposed to do?"

  They looked disappointed. Susan put her mug down and looked off into the distance. Her friend drank and poured another.

  We all saw it at the same time, a round thing, a dull mushroom cap a meter across, tooling down the road.

  "C’mon!" I leapt up and pulled the girl’s wrist.

  "Oww! What? Don't get weird on me!"

  "That thing!" I was off the steps already and ducking behind them still holding her wrist.

  "What - that thing? Forget it!"

  It stopped on its soft wheels. From out of the bottom emerged three meter-long snakes with dark green and navy blue hounds-tooth scales. They were for us.

  Down the block, I outran mine easily enough. The girls stayed. I risked a look back and saw their two snakes coolly running up the rail. The girls calmly watched them go to their necks, dart in and wrap around. On the quiet street I could hear their necks break, one then the other.

  My knees went weak, turned to mush then failed - It was coming - Scraping my palms, I struggled, panicking to get back up from the cement, clambering to escape.

  *

  Running was easy; with the chip I wasn't getting tired. Every metabolic function in my body was optimized, perfect or near to it. When I'd exercised before in my little house, I'd always stopped after a set time, before really feeling anything – this time I pushed.

  The next few block's buildings were destroyed from bombs. The street itself was untouched. Further on looked worse. Fires still burned. The wind came through bringing the heat to me. I turned to head toward the water.

  The artist colony was near. After a few minutes of steady running, I found it: demolished, reduced to one ruined story.

  I sat on the low wall going around the complex. The wall was fouled and warm from the fire but undamaged. Inside a flat field of sticky, greasy ash reached to the remaining structure.

  I’d lost the pursuing snake but wasn't comfortable staying long in this spot. I had to go somewhere.

  Leaving the city seemed the only option. Waiting it out or waiting for help here would likely mean getting killed by these machines. I cut across the scorched plaza to try the highway. I knew the highway was one of the only ways a person could conceivably try walking out of the city.

  Something crunched underfoot. It was Elena's purse. The strap was broken and most of the trinkets had snapped off. The outside stunk of burnt plastic. Inside I found only a pair of lighters, one working, one not, and kept them both.

  Down the familiar path, the lush gardens of the park were now black and flattened where the bombs had hit. What trees were left standing smoldered at their branch's bare tips. The rain had stopped. Little bits and wisps of ash floated up and fell as they cooled.

  I found the way to the theater then picked up the long straight sidewalk to the art exhibits. They were burnt beyond recognition. The tiles were still hot as I felt around in the heap of ashes and wire at what I guessed might be the right spot.

  He was perfectly intact though inanimate. The filth wiped right off his metal-ceramic exterior: My mole. I put him in my pocket with the lighters.

  *

  From the boxy wheat planters I jumped; my boots thumped onto the highway.

  I could run, the way ahead was clear to escape the city and the murderous creatures. My legs really got going - I loped along at a good pace, 25kph probably. The mole's tail fins jabbed me through my pants pocket with every stride. I stopped and took him out.

  He was a strange looking th
ing, neither animal nor machine. Something made by machines that were made by other machines, more than an animal or a machine. Gently twisting the fins clockwise retracted them back inside his body. They didn't bother me further.

  Where was I going? I had been heading north but there was nothing there for me. Going south or east would take me back through the city. There was only one way to go. On the third try, I succeeded in levering my body up over the side and out of the roadway, this time onto a planter of strawberries. I picked a few handfuls and swallowed, barely tasting them. I needed to go westward and I would need fuel.

  *

  Once I found the rhythm, I was able to settle down and think things over. I swam across the Central Basin. My boots tied safely around my waist, I kicked out one leg as the opposite arm reached forward, drew all four limbs inward and repeated the stroke on the other side. I swam with tireless precision, briefly resting every 100m to breathe deeply and check my bearing in the choppy water.