by Matt Rogers
Someone else noticed too.
One of Pat’s friends stepped down from the booth and made her way over. Slater had spoken to her a handful of times throughout the evening. At one point, Pat had discreetly let slip that she was the reason he’d approached Slater at the Koreatown bar in the first place. She’d been interested from the get-go. And as he watched her approach, he couldn’t help but admit he was interested back. She was only a couple of inches shorter than him, tall and long-legged with a model’s graceful physique. She had rich eyes and an alluring smile, and speaking to her in the booth he’d been struck by the giddy sensation that there was nothing else going on in the world — just their conversation. She was one of the most interesting women he’d met in quite some time. She was Pat’s risk analyst, and had been working for him for three years. Outside of work, she was a gym junkie. She trained Crossfit every morning and ran five miles every evening.
Once again, Slater found it always came back to the mutual penchant for suffering.
You had to find balance.
You had to hurt in solitude so you could fully enjoy the hedonistic moments like this. Otherwise you wound up in a place like Palantir fat and sweaty and out of shape, with a turbulent mind. Wherever Slater went, he was at peace. He could tell she was the same.
Her name was Serena, and now she waltzed right up to him and put her hands on his shoulders.
She brought her lips up to his ear and said, ‘Did I just see what I think I saw?’
‘Depends what you think you saw.’
‘Are you in trouble?’
Slater flashed a glance at Rico’s booth. It was still packed to the rafters, but the kid himself was nowhere to be found. Probably seated up the back licking his wounds. The security were stationed at regular intervals around the perimeter, but they were deliberately looking in any direction but Slater’s.
They’d come to an understanding, evidently.
Slater said, ‘I don’t think so.’
She kept her hands where they were, and he liked it. It was the first move either of them had made. Despite the alcoholic haze, there’d been an undercurrent of agreement that they would both play hard to get.
Until now.
He kissed her. She smiled as he did, her lips against his and her white teeth bared, and then kissed back. The rest of the club fell away. They probed as best as they could with their hands given the public setting, and when they parted she kept her arms draped over his shoulders. She seemed ready to shed her dress at the slightest provocation. He gave silent thanks for the torture he put himself through on a daily basis. It made him irresistible to women of her calibre, and as far as he was concerned in his drunken state, that was all there was to life.
At least in this moment.
He said, ‘I have a place.’
‘Where?’
‘Upper East Side.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Someone’s doing well.’
‘Wait until you see it.’
‘You’re acting like that’s a foregone conclusion.’
He shrugged, feeling her palms on his collar bones. ‘Suit yourself.’
She offered a playful smile. ‘You knew I was going to come back with you, didn’t you?’
‘I had a suspicion.’
'How’d you know?’
‘I’m persuasive.’
‘You are.’
‘Has it worked?’
She kissed him again, then went up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. ‘It sure has.’
‘Should we get out of here?’
‘Let’s.’
He took her by the hand and turned away from the booths. He didn’t bother searching for any sign of aggression from Rico’s booth. The security were level-headed enough to know their place, and there were five of them. He’d won them over, so they’d keep Rico away from him if the kid had any malicious impulses. But Slater imagined he wouldn’t. He’d been humiliated, and he wouldn’t be feeling as drunk as he had a few moments ago. Sobering clarity sinks in as the haze of confidence falls away.
Making him realise, That guy just took my gun and made my sicarios babysit me.
So Slater looped an arm around Serena’s shoulder and started to guide her toward the exit.
Then the music cut out with an audible whump. Compared to the deafening bass, the silence was eerie.
Concerned murmuring rose off the dance floor, and spread through the club like wildfire.
Slater paused.
A second later, the lights went out.
11
Dead quiet.
King didn’t move a muscle.
He stood under the night sky, barely able to make out his surroundings. He could see the outlines of buildings, now akin to mammoth archaeological relics without any lights to demonstrate their modernity. The darkness was all-encompassing. Perhaps in the countryside it might have seemed normal. But Manhattan was a different beast. New York was the city that never slept — powered up twenty-four-seven, running around the clock, complete with shouts and horns and flashing lights everywhere you looked.
King listened intently to the silence.
But it only lasted a few seconds.
It was like the whole city paused in unison, staring around in awe at the blackout. Then, like clockwork, the cacophony of noise returned. Drivers leant on horns, pedestrians in the distance shouted to one another, and the general murmur of the city cranked up in decibels.
People were concerned. And they had every right to be.
Finally, King moved. He turned around and stared down the alleyway. He could see cars flashing past its mouth, their headlights still beaming. He turned back, and peered down to the other end. Same deal. But the buildings stayed dark. The streets stayed dark. It was like a great swathe of black, illuminated by a maze of interconnected roads and streets and laneways still teeming with vehicles.
Only half a dozen feet away but practically invisible, Rory said, ‘What was that?’
King said, ‘A blackout.’
‘I know, but…’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘The power will come back on, right?’
King looked up at the skyscrapers.
Nothing.
Quiet.
Dark.
Dormant.
It had only been a few seconds since the lights had gone out.
It felt like hours.
Rory said, ‘Jason?’
King realised the man had been speaking. He hadn’t heard a word.
King said, ‘What?’
‘I’ve never seen you like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘So quiet.’
‘I don’t talk much.’
‘This is different.’
King realised minutes must have passed. He was deep in his own head, skewered away, very close to something eerily similar to panic. And Rory was right. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d succumbed to emotions like this. He tried to force them back down.
But this time he couldn’t.
He said, ‘How long have we been standing here?’
‘Maybe five minutes.’
King’s legs felt concreted to the ground. He pulled out his smartphone and fired it up. The screen glowed like a furnace in the total darkness.
He saw what he expected to see.
EMERGENCY ALERT.
Right there on the screen. Sent to every smartphone in the city probably. Possibly the entire New York Metropolitan Area, depending on how widespread the blackout was.
He read it.
Power outage in New York. Await further details.
King held up his phone for Rory to see. ‘This isn’t good.’
‘That’s just the default protocol, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What do you know about power outages?’
‘That they’re never this big.’
‘It could just be this block.’
‘It’s not.’
‘
How do you know?’
‘They wouldn’t have sent that alert out if they knew what was happening.’
Neither of them said a word. They listened to the sounds of the city. It wasn’t pandemonium. Far from it. In fact, there was an undercurrent of excitement in the air. The murmuring was excited. King understood why. It was a Friday night, and half the city’s socialites were a few drinks deep. Those prone to panic were more likely squared away in their apartments. Right now, with most of those out and about shrouded in a pleasant buzz, the darkness would seem exciting.
But not for long.
Rory didn’t seem to like the quiet. He managed a laugh, but it came out hollow, with a tinge of nervousness. After all, he’d spent enough time with King to know the man was afraid of almost nothing.
So when the laugh died off, Rory said, ‘Okay, what the fuck is up with you?’
King looked at him. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He could see the man’s silhouette clearly. Again, he said, ‘This isn’t good.’
‘It’s been five minutes.’
‘But soon it’ll be ten. Then it’ll be an hour.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘They sent out an emergency alert.’
‘Which means?’
King rubbed his brow. ‘That they’d been expecting everything to go to shit.’
‘You can’t be sure.’
‘I work for the government.’
‘You’re an independent contractor. You don’t know anything about what happens behind-the-scenes. You told me that yourself.’
‘But I know what will happen if this lasts any longer than a couple of hours.’
‘It’ll be okay.’
‘There’s twenty million people in the New York Metropolitan Area.’
Rory lapsed into silence.
Thinking.
Finally he said, ‘It’s still only been five minutes. You need to relax.’
King said, ‘Phones will be dead within a day. Flashlights and radios will go, too. There’s not going to be any running water.’
Silence.
He said, ‘How long do you think it’ll take people to start panicking?’
Rory looked around.
Manhattan was dark.
The man said, ‘Not long.’
‘And when it starts, it’ll spread like wildfire.’
The tendrils of a breeze whispered down the alleyway. King shivered in the night.
Rory said, ‘Yeah, okay, this isn’t good.’
‘If this goes for any longer than an hour it’s going to be bedlam.’
‘Surely New York can stay calm for longer than that.’
‘One person starts looting and everyone will join in. It’s the mob mentality.’
‘After an hour? Surely emergency services will maintain—’
‘Think about how many people are trapped in elevators right now.’
Rory said nothing.
King said, ‘And that’s just the start of the problems.’
Silence.
‘Hospitals.’
Silence.
‘Gridlock.’
Rory said, ‘What do we do?’
King didn’t respond. In that moment he understood his insignificance. Together they could maybe help a dozen people. There were, potentially, twenty million who would soon be thrust back into something similar to the dark ages if this situation didn’t resolve itself. Twenty million people living in the modern age, most of them completely dependent on cellphones and meal delivery services and…
‘Shit,’ King said.
Rory said, ‘You should call your girlfriend.’
‘Yeah,’ King said. ‘I should.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I … don’t know.’
Rory offered a hand.
As a gesture of farewell.
King stared at it.
‘What are you doing?’ he said.
‘This isn’t my world.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘Do you need me?’
King paused.
Then said, ‘I guess I don’t.’
And shook his hand.
‘If this lasts as long as you think it will,’ Rory said, ‘then there’s going to be panic. Just like you said. We both know what that leads to. You’re going to be needed.’
‘Are you sure you—?’
‘I train fighters. I don’t fight. Especially not in the real world. People have guns and knives in the real world. That trumps what I do.’
King didn’t respond.
Rory said, ‘But not what you do.’
King nodded.
Rory said, ‘I’d just get in the way.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Will I still see you next week for training?’
Rory tried to smile.
Once again, it was hollow.
But he said, ‘There’s that familiar optimism.’
King said, ‘We’ll figure this out. Don’t worry.’
‘Oh, I’m worried,’ Rory said. ‘Because I’ve never seen you worried.’
Then he turned and walked off into the darkness without another word.
Leaving King to his own devices.
Leaving him alone in the city that, for the first time in years, had gone to sleep.
12
No one immediately panicked.
Everyone was drunk, and alcohol had the uncanny ability to make you nonplussed about future consequences. As Slater lost his vision the drunken haze peeled away, replaced quickly by pure adrenaline, but to almost every other patron in Palantir the lights going out was a mere inconvenience. There were laughs of derision, and half-hearted aw-shucks complaints, and excited murmuring between groups. Slater’s ears whined in the sudden silence, still affected by the thrumming music that had cut out only moments earlier. He heard a couple of particularly drunken customers start whooping and hollering in the darkness, but it was muffled. It’d take a few minutes for his hearing to fully return.
Serena was gripping him tight around the waist.
Maybe she’d sensed the fact he was on edge.
She said, ‘Are you okay?’
He couldn’t see her. It was pitch black. His mind immediately wandered to potential dangers. Had one of Rico’s friends or business associates cut the power? Were there sicarios lunging toward him right now with switchblades in their hands?
He reached back, felt the cool touch of the Colt against his waist, and placed his hand gently on the grip. Then he stood still as a statue and stiffened, waiting for the slightest provocation. His eyes were wide as saucers. He fought to acclimatise to the darkness, but there wasn’t a window in sight to let in even a sliver of natural light. There would be no adjusting.
The inklings of panic started to drift through the crowd. He felt the atmosphere palpably shift. It never took much. Maybe one person had started to hyperventilate in the corner of the room and it had set off a chain reaction. No way to know for sure. But suddenly the murmurings became more concerned. Some people raised their voices. The whooping and hollering stopped. There was a smattering of requests for an exit. First quiet and noncommittal, then louder.
Then, louder still.
Suddenly everyone was squirming and shuffling about, pressed against each other on the dance floor.
Slater hadn’t sensed anyone trying to bullrush him.
He started to realise this wasn’t a deliberate ploy to catch him off-guard.
Not everything revolves around you.
By now he was close to dead sober, despite the mountains of booze in his system. He could tap into the cocktail of stress chemicals at will — it was second nature to him. Right now the alcohol served no purpose, so he thrust its effects away as adrenaline rushed through his system.
He whispered into Serena’s ear, ‘I’m going to need to handle this.’
She said, ‘What?’
He said, ‘Don’t get frightened.�
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Then he stepped away from her, waited for the briefest lull in the crowd’s volume, and then screamed at the top of his lungs, ‘Everybody quiet!’
When he needed to, he could roar like nobody’s business.
Everyone shut up in unison.
Like tape had been wrenched across all their mouths at once.
Slater yelled, ‘I’m a cop! Everyone relax. No one panic.’
There was still a smattering of drunken murmurs and whispers, but apart from that everyone seemed to be obeying. Nothing like the loss of one of your senses to shock you into submission. They would do what he said. Hopefully he could prevent a stampede.
‘Everyone get your phones out and turn your flashlights on.’
It was obvious in hindsight, but there were only a handful of beams illuminated when he made the command. Then, in the space of ten seconds, Palantir lit up with dozens of bright white lights skewering toward the ceiling, casting sweeping shadows over the decor. It added an eerie vibe to the club, but it was better than pitch darkness.
Slater shouted, ‘Everyone make your way slowly toward the exit. No faster than a shuffle. Do not run or panic.’
The crowd obliged.
He could hear the slightest indicators of movement amidst the sea of white light — like an interconnected body of water flowing in one direction. Clothes rustling against each other. Hands probing for shoulders. But no one ran. And no one panicked. Serena’s fingers touched Slater’s hips and he led her along with the tide, aiming for the exit. By now, he was calm. There wouldn’t be a stampede. That was the most important thing. Most people underestimate how destructive a panicked crowd in a tight space could be. He gave the patrons of Palantir silent credit for their calmness. No one was shouting and screaming. Everyone seemed to collectively understand the need for cooperation — at least until they were out on the street.
Slater found the exit and followed the masses down a tighter corridor, illuminated brighter than the cavernous main space by the abundance of flashlights. Then they were in the entranceway, where unnerved bouncers were standing around looking dumb. They didn’t know what to do. Slater found it a little disconcerting. Surely they should be trying to restore calm and make sure that all the patrons were safe—