The City of Mirrors

by Justin Cronin

  Caleb. Greer.

  With one arm crooked around the gangway rail, his son was calling to them while pointing at the end of the pier. The seawall door had been nudged away from the ship; it now stood at an acute angle to the moving hull. When the gangway passed the end of the door, the gap between them would narrow to a jumpable distance.

  But she was no longer beside him; Peter was alone. He spun and saw her, standing fifty feet behind him, facing away.

  “Get ready to jump!” Caleb yelled.

  The virals had reached the base of the dock. Amy drew her sword and called to Peter over her shoulder. “You can make it! Get on that ship!”

  “Amy, what are you doing? Come on!”

  “Don’t make me explain! Just go!”

  Suddenly he understood: Amy did not intend to leave. Perhaps she never had.

  Then he saw the girl.

  Halfway down the pier, far out of his reach, she was crouched behind a giant spool of cable. Strawberry hair tied with a ribbon, scratches on her face, a stuffed animal gripped tightly to her chest with arms thin as twigs.

  “Oh, no.”

  Amy saw her, too. She sheathed her sword and dashed toward her. The virals were racing up the dock. The little girl was frozen with terror. Amy swung her onto her hip and began to run. With her free hand she waved Peter forward. “Don’t wait! I’ll need you to catch us!”

  He raced down the seawall door. The bottom of the gangway was thirty feet away and closing fast. Caleb yelled, “Do it now!”

  Peter leapt.

  For an instant it seemed he had jumped too soon; he would plunge into the roiling water. But then his hands caught the rail of the gangway. He pulled himself up, found his footing, and turned around. Amy, still holding the girl, was running down the top of the wall. The gangway was passing them by; she was never going to make it. Peter reached out as Amy took five bounding strides, each longer than the last, and flung herself over the abyss.

  Peter could not remember the moment when he grabbed her hand. Only that he’d done it.

  They had cleared the dock. Michael ran down from the pilothouse and dashed to the rail. He saw a deep dent, fifty feet long at least, though the wound was high above the waterline. He looked toward shore. A hundred yards aft, at the end of the dock, a mass of virals was watching the departing ship like a crowd of mourners.

  “Help!”

  The voice came from the stern.

  “Someone’s fallen!”

  He raced aft. A woman, clutching an infant, was pointing over the rail.

  “I didn’t know she was going to jump!”

  “Who? Who was it?”

  “She was on a stretcher, she could barely walk. She said her name was Alicia.”

  A coiled rope lay on the deck. Michael pushed the button on the radio. “Lore, kill the props!”

  “What?”

  “Do it! Full stop!”

  He was already wrapping the rope around his waist, having shoved the radio into the hand of the woman, who stared at in confusion.

  “Where are you going?” the woman asked.

  He stepped over the rail. Far below, the waters swirled in a maelstrom. Kill them, he thought. Dear God, Lore, kill those screws now.

  He jumped.

  Toes pointed, arms outstretched, he pierced the surface like a spike; instantly the current grabbed him, shoving him down. He slammed into the mucky bottom and began to roll along it. His eyes stung with salt; he could see nothing at all, not even his hands.

  He fell straight into her.

  A confusion of limbs: they were both tumbling, spiraling along the bottom. He grabbed her belt and drew her body into his and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  The slack ran out.

  A hard yank; Michael felt as if he were being sliced in two. Still holding Alicia, he vaulted upward at a forty-five-degree angle. Michael had already been in the water for thirty seconds; his brain was screaming for air. The screws had stopped turning, but this no longer mattered. They were being pulled along by the boat’s momentum. Unless they broke the surface soon, they’d drown.

  Suddenly, a whining sound: the screws had reengaged. No! Then Michael realized what had happened: Lore had reversed the engines. The tension on the rope began to soften, then was gone. A new force gripped them. They were being sucked forward, toward the spiraling props.

  They were going to be chopped to bits.

  Michael looked up. High above, the surface shimmered. What was the source of this mysterious, beckoning light? The sound of the screws abruptly ceased; now he understood Lore’s intentions. She was creating enough slack in the line for them to ascend. Michael began to kick. Alicia, don’t give up. Help me do this. Unless you do, we’re dead. But it was no use; they were sinking like stones. The light receded pitilessly.

  The rope went taut again. They were being pulled.

  As they broke the surface, Michael opened his mouth wide, sucking in a vast gulp of air. They were beneath the stern, a mountain of steel soaring above them; the light he’d seen was the moon. It shone down upon them, fat and full, spilling across the surface of the water.

  “It’s all right, I’ve got you,” Michael said. Alicia was coughing and sputtering in his arms; from high above, a lifeboat floated down. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

  77

  Carter’s eyes were full of stars.

  He lay on the causeway, bloodied and broken. Some parts of him felt as if they were absent, no longer attached. There was no pain; rather, his body felt distant, beyond his command.

  Brothers, sisters.

  They stood around him in a circle. Toward them, he felt only love. The ship was gone; it was streaming away. He felt a great love for everything; he would have wrapped the world with his heart if he could. At the edge of the causeway, moonlight skittered across the water, making a glowing road for him to travel.

  Let me do this. Let me feel it coming out of me. Let me be a man again, before I die.

  Carter began to crawl. The virals stepped back, allowing him to pass. There was in their comportment a feeling of respect, as if they were pupils, or soldiers accepting the sword of their enemy. Across the roadway, Carter made his passage. His left hand, reaching out, was the first part of him to touch the sea. The water was cool and welcoming, rich with salt and earth. A billion living things coursed through it; to them he would be joined.

  Brothers, sisters, I thank you..

  He slipped beneath the surface of the water.

  XI

  The City of Mirrors

  I wear the chain I forged in life.… I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.

  —CHARLES DICKENS, A CHRISTMAS CAROL

  78

  Dawn at sea.

  The Bergensfjord lay at anchor, her great engines at rest. The sky was low, the water blank as stone; far away, a screen of rain fell into the Gulf. Most of the passengers were sleeping on the deck. Their bodies lay in disorder, as if felled all at once. They were a hundred miles from land.

  Amy stood at the bow, Peter beside her. Her mind was drifting, refusing to attach to any thought but one. Anthony was gone. She was all that remained.

  The little girl’s name was Rebecca. Her mother had died in the attack, her father years ago. Amy’s feeling of her—her body’s weight and heat, the desperate force with which she’d clung to her as they had soared through space—was still palpable. Amy did not think it would ever depart; the sensation had become a part of her, stitched to her bones. It had defined the moment, making the choice for her. It was not only Rebecca that Amy had seen on the pier but her own little-girl self, who had, after all, been just as alone, abandoned by the great heaving engine of the world and in need of saving.

  For some time, perhaps ten minutes, neither she nor Peter spoke. Like her, Peter was only half present, staring into space—the pale dawn sky, the sea, limitlessly calm.

  It was Amy who
broke the silence. “You better go talk to her.”

  In the small hours of the night, a decision had been reached. Amy could not go; neither could Alicia. If the survivors were going to make a new life for themselves, all traces of the old terrors needed to be left behind. What mattered now was for others to accept it.

  “She didn’t do this, Peter.”

  He glanced at her but said nothing.

  “Neither did you,” she added.

  Another silence. With all her heart she wanted him to believe this, yet she knew it was impossible for him to think otherwise.

  “You need to make peace with her, Peter. For both your sakes.”

  The sun was rising unremarkably behind the clouds; the sky was devoid of color, its edges blended imperceptibly into the horizon. The rain kept its distance. Michael had assured them that the weather wouldn’t be a problem; he knew how to read these things.

  “Well,” Peter said with a sigh, “I suppose I better do this.”

  He left her and descended to the crew’s quarters. The air below decks was cooler, smelling of wet metal and rust. Most of Michael’s men were snoring in their racks, using this brief hiatus to rest and prepare themselves for what lay ahead.

  Alicia lay on the lower bunk at the far end of the corridor. Peter pulled up a stool and cleared his throat. “So.”

  Staring upward, she had yet to look at him. “Say what’s on your mind.”

  He wasn’t entirely sure what that was. I’m sorry I tried to strangle you? Or What were you thinking? Perhaps he meant Go to hell.

  “I’m here to offer a truce.”

  “A truce,” Alicia repeated. “Sounds like Amy’s idea.”

  “You tried to kill yourself, Lish.”

  “And it would have worked, too, if Michael hadn’t decided to be the hero. I’ve got a bit of a bone to pick with the guy.”

  “Did you think the water would change you back?”

  “Would it make you feel better if I did?” She blew out a breath. “I’m afraid that’s not an option for me. Fanning was pretty clear on that score. No, I’d have to say that drowning was pretty much the goal.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “Peter, what do you want? If you’re here to pity me, I’m not interested.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “What you mean to say is that you need me.”

  He nodded. “That would be fair.”

  “And, under the circumstances, it’s best if we bury the hatchet. Comrades, brothers-in-arms, no division within the ranks.”

  “More or less, yes.”

  With painful slowness, she turned her face toward him. “Want to know what I was thinking? While your hands were around me throat, I mean.”

  “If you want to tell me.”

  “I was thinking, Well, if anybody’s going to strangle me, I’m glad it’s my old friend Peter.”

  She’d spoken these words without bitterness; she was merely stating a fact.

  “I was wrong,” he said. “You didn’t deserve it. I don’t know what’s between you and Fanning. I doubt I’ll ever get it, frankly. But I sold you short.”

  She weighed his words, then shrugged. “So, you screwed up. Short of an outright apology, I guess I’ll have to take that.”

  “I guess you will.”

  She gave him a look of warning. “I said I can get you in there, and I can. But you’re throwing your life away.”

  “I’d say it’s the opposite.”

  Alicia made a sound that began as a laugh but turned into a cough—deep, hacking. Her eyes clamped shut with pain. Peter waited for it to subside.

  “Lish, are you all right?”

  Her cheeks were flushed; spittle flecked her lips. “Do I look all right?”

  “On the whole, you’ve seemed better.”

  She shook her head indulgently, the way a mother might with a hopeless child. “You never change, Peter. Fifty years I’ve known you, and you’re still the same guy. Maybe that’s why I can’t stay mad at you.”

  “And I’ll take that.” He stood. “Need anything before we leave?”

  “A new body would be nice. This one seems to have run its course.”

  “Short of that.”

  Alicia thought for a moment, then smiled. “I don’t know—how about another rabbit?”

  He found his son on deck, sitting on a wooden crate and watching Michael making his preparations on the fantail.

  “You mind?” he asked.

  Caleb scooted over.

  “Where’s Pim?”

  “Asleep.” His son turned and gave him a hard look. “Help me understand this.”

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  “Then why? What difference could it possibly make now?”

  “People will come back someday. If Fanning’s still alive, it starts all over again.”

  “You’re going because of her.”

  Peter was speechless.

  “Oh, don’t look so surprised,” Caleb went on. “I’ve known about it for years.”

  Peter didn’t know how to respond. In the end, he could only admit the truth. “Well, you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right.”

  “Let me finish. Amy does have something to do with this, but she’s not the only reason.” He brought his thoughts into focus. “Here’s the best way I have to explain it. It’s a story about your father. At the Colony, we had a tradition. We called it standing the Mercy. When a person was taken up, a relative would wait for them each night on the city wall. We’d set out a cage with a lamb inside as bait. Seven nights, waiting for them to come home, and if they did, it was that person’s job to kill them. It was usually the responsibility of the closest male relative, so when your father disappeared, I had to stand for him.”

  Caleb was watching his face closely. “How old were you?”

  “Twenty, twenty-one? Just a kid.”

  “But he didn’t come back. He’d been taken to the Haven.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know that. Seven nights, Caleb. That’s a lot of time to think about killing a person, especially my own brother. At the start, I wondered if I actually could. Our parents had died, Theo was the only person I had left in the world. But as the nights passed, I came to understand something. There was something worse than killing him, and that would be letting somebody else do it. If the situation were reversed, if I had been the one taken up, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I didn’t want to do it, believe me, but I owed him that much. The responsibility was mine and no one else’s.” Peter gave his words a moment to sink in. “That’s what this is like, son. I don’t know why it has to be me. That’s a question I can’t answer. But it doesn’t matter. Pim and the kids—those are your responsibilities. You were put on earth to protect them till your last breath. That’s your job. This is mine. You need to let me do it.”

  Aboard the Nautilus, Michael was issuing instructions to the crewmen who would assist in launching her. The hull had been wrapped in thick rope webbing; a steel boom and a system of blocks would be used to lift her from her cradle and lower her over the side. Once she was in the water, they would cut her free, raise the mast, and set sail for New York.

  “He’ll kill you,” Caleb said.

  Peter said nothing.

  “And if you succeed? Amy can’t leave. You said so yourself.”

  “No, she can’t.

  “So what then?”

  “Then I live my life. Just like you’re going to live yours.”

  Peter waited for his son to say more; when he didn’t, he put his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “You have to accept this, son.”

  “It’s not easy.”

  “I know it’s not.”

  Caleb tipped his face upward. He swallowed, hard, and said, “When I was a kid, my friends always talked about you. Some of what they said was true, a lot of it was total bullshit. The funny thing was, I felt bad for you. I won’t say I didn’t like the attention, but I also knew you didn’t
want people to think of you like that. It kind of stumped me. Who wouldn’t want to be a big deal, some kind of hero? Then one day it hit me. You felt that way because of me. I was the choice you’d made, and the rest didn’t matter to you anymore. You would have been perfectly happy if the world just forgot about you.”

  “It’s true. That’s how I saw it.”

  “I felt so goddamn lucky. When you started working for Sanchez, I thought things might change, but they never did.” He looked at Peter again. “So now you ask me if I can just let you go. Well, I can’t. I don’t have that in me. But I do understand.”

  They sat without speaking for a time. Around them, the ship was waking up, passengers rising, stretching their limbs. Did that really happen? they thought, their eyes blinking against an unfamiliar, oceanic light. Am I really on a ship? Is that the sun, the sea? How stunned they must be, thought Peter, by the infinite calm of it all. Voices accumulated—mostly the children, for whom a night of terror, abruptly and in a manner completely unforeseen, had opened a door to an entirely new existence. They had gone to sleep in one world and awakened in another, so dissimilar as to seem, perhaps, an altogether different version of reality. As the minutes passed, many of the passengers were drawn magnetically to the rail—pointing, whispering, chattering among themselves. As he listened, memories poured through him, as well as a sense of all the things he would never see.

  Michael walked toward them. The man’s eyes darted toward Caleb, quickly sizing up the situation, then back to Peter. Shuffling his hands in his pockets, he said, gently, almost as if he were apologizing, “The supplies are all aboard. I think we’re about ready here.”

  Peter nodded. “Okay.” But he made no move to do anything about this.

  “Do you … want me to tell the others?”

  “I think that would be good.”

  Michael walked away. Peter turned to his son. “Caleb—”

  “I’m all right.” He rose from the crate, holding himself stiffly, like a man with a wound. “I’ll get Pim and the children.”