by Matt Rogers
Then Slater stepped outside, and realised it wasn’t just their building that had been hit.
Every skyscraper he could see, every streetlight in the laneway…
All dark.
‘Oh, shit,’ he said.
Serena gazed around in wonderment. ‘Wow. You ever seen anything like this before?’
‘It happened in 2003,’ Slater said. ‘But I wasn’t in-country back then.’
‘Where were you?’
Slater didn’t respond.
She said, ‘Are you really a cop?’
‘No.’
‘That was quick thinking, then.’
‘I guess I’m half a cop.’
‘And the other half?’
He didn’t answer.
He peered all around, drinking in the night, ignoring the masses and crowds all around him.
Then he looked at her.
‘Serena, I have to go.’
She furrowed her brow. ‘It’s just a power outage. Surely we can still—’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I had fun tonight. Take care of yourself.’
He turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Then pulled out his smartphone and stared at the screen.
And froze.
The networks were down.
That wasn’t normal. Almost all the major cell towers relied on backup generators in case of outages exactly like this. For the networks to go down, those generators would have to be deliberately targeted…
His blood ran cold.
Is this an attack?
Thankfully, his own phone had been modified by Violetta’s tech team to provide satellite capabilities in the event he was ever out of range.
He breathed silent thanks for her hindsight, and called Jason King.
13
King didn’t answer.
He was already on the phone to Violetta LaFleur, making use of the same satellite technology.
She picked up immediately and said, ‘Where are you?’
‘Yorkville. How bad is it?’
‘Where in Yorkville?’
‘The beer garden we’ve visited before. Just off 85th and Second.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Are you with Will?’
‘No.’
‘Have you heard from him?’
‘No. I assume he’s close to a blackout himself.’
She didn’t laugh.
That’s when he knew it was serious.
He said, ‘Where do you need me?’
‘Go back home right now. I’ll meet you there.’
‘At the penthouse?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’ll be eighty flights of stairs. Is that really necessary?’
‘Your building has an emergency generator system installed, so you’ll be okay to use the elevators. Give thanks that you live in one of the most exclusive residences on the Upper East Side.’
He said, ‘How did you know that and I didn’t?’
‘Because ever since the attack on your penthouses last year, we’ve been monitoring the building for you. You and Will know how valuable you are to us. Those extra security measures we discussed also included knowing every feature the place has.’
‘How long’s the emergency generator going to last? Especially for a building of that size.’
‘Long enough.’
He paused. ‘Do you know what’s happening?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And we need you both.’
‘For what?’
‘Get back home,’ she said. ‘I need to go. It’s chaos over here.’
‘Understood.’
‘And Jason?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please don’t get yourself killed on the way back.’
‘Why on earth would that happen?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just… I don’t like this. Don’t drop your guard.’
‘I never do.’
‘See you soon.’
She ended the call.
He lowered the phone and loitered in the alleyway. He hadn’t moved since Rory had walked away. Most of the beer garden’s patrons had filtered past him on their way out of the dark bar, illuminating the way forward with the flashlights on their phones. But by now all the beacons of light were gone, flowing through into the city streets where urgent energy was flowing like a river. All King could think was, That’s going to kill their batteries real quick.
And then what?
Two days, he figured.
That’s how long it would take until real problems would arise.
And those problems…
…well, he couldn’t even fathom how severe they’d be.
He twirled the phone in his hand, then opened the settings and killed anything running in the background that wasn’t absolutely necessary. He needed the battery to last as long as possible.
Then the screen changed, replaced by an incoming call notification.
The contact name was one word.
Slater.
King answered and said, ‘How many drinks have you had?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘I said I’m fine.’
‘You sound lucid enough.’
‘I’m not the drunk you think I am.’
‘You’re still skirting around the question. That tells me everything I need to know.’
‘I’ve had a lot,’ Slater said. ‘Is that what you wanted? Can you even tell that it’s affecting me?’
‘No, I can’t. But I’d say that’s because of your tolerance level. That doesn’t make you any less drunk.’
‘Cut the bullshit and tell me where you need me.’
‘What makes you think I know?’
‘You’ve spoken to Violetta, I’m sure.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘Get back home,’ King said. ‘I’ll meet you there.’
‘In the lobby? I’m not taking the stairs for no good reason.’
Great minds think alike, King thought.
He said, ‘There’s an emergency generator in the building.’
‘How the hell do you know that?’
‘I don’t. Violetta told me.’
A pause, then a laugh. ‘What would we do without her?’
‘Who knows,’ King said. ‘Where are you?’
‘Palantir. At least, I was.’
‘I thought you said you were having a quiet one.’
‘I was. Got carried away.’
‘That seems to be a recurring theme.’
‘Host an intervention for me later. What do you know about this? What did Violetta say?’
‘Not a whole lot. But she said enough.’
‘It’s bad, right?’
‘It has the potential to be.’
‘I thought as much.’
‘Any craziness happening where you are?’
A pause, then Slater said, ‘I nearly got into a fight with the son of a drug lord. It would have got ugly real fast. But that was before the power went out. Nothing of note has happened in the last ten minutes.’
King said, ‘Christ. Just make it back home in one piece.’
‘Yes, sir. Anything else?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Is this why she had to stay back at work?’ Slater said. ‘You told me dinner got pushed back so you were going to train with Rory. Did she know this was coming?’
King hesitated.
He hadn’t considered it.
He said, ‘I don’t know. I’ll find out.’
‘She couldn’t tell you over the phone?’
‘As you can imagine, she’s dealing with a lot of issues right now.’
‘Is she meeting us in person?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we’re probably going to be needed.’
‘We are needed. I just told you that.’
‘Right.’
The hints of inebriation, slipping through the cracks in the f
açade.
King said, ‘How fast can you sober up?’
‘I’m already sober. But I’ll buy a bottle of water on the way home.’
King shook his head, flabbergasted. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’
‘Practice.’
The line went dead.
He put the phone back in his pocket and left the alleyway, stepping out onto 83rd Street. A churning sensation rippled through his gut, and he paused and placed his hand on the nearby brick wall to steady himself. It wasn’t the beer. He could handle much more than a single pint. And it wasn’t the fact that he and Slater were needed. Sure, that meant violence and chaos, but that was to be expected in this line of work.
What really worried him was the scope of the blackout.
He didn’t know much about contingency plans.
He just knew everything would go to hell if this lasted too long.
And if Violetta had known something was coming, then that meant it was pre-planned.
It meant it was deliberate.
King set off into the city streets, pushing through throngs of pedestrians waving their phone flashlights around like they were at a rave. The piercing glare of stationary headlights cut through the gridlock traffic. Without functioning traffic lights, the city had come to a standstill. It all combined into an uncanny atmosphere, like nothing he’d ever seen before in Manhattan.
A sea of pinpoints, the white artificial lights like specks against the greater backdrop of the dark city.
Unnerved by how alien it all felt, he broke into a jog toward the Upper East Side.
14
Rico Guzmán wasn’t having a good time.
There were a number of reasons, and if he put some conscious thought into dissecting exactly why he felt so terrible, he might have had a touch more self-awareness. But conscious thought didn’t get a vote. It was dark and chaotic and he felt like shit. He had a throbbing headache, and blotchy purple bruising had formed on his neck, and the overbearing sensation of disorientation had him in its grasp.
To make matters worse, he no longer had his Colt, and he definitely didn’t have the trust of his bodyguards.
Which made him angry.
He stood out the front of Palantir, surrounded by the sicarios, who were doing a respectable job of pretending they were window dressing in suits and not trained stone-cold killers. Better for the general public to think they were some rich kid’s unnecessary security rather than a cohort of assassins tasked with protecting the precious son of the esteemed Guzmán patriarch.
Rico pushed a pair of fingers into his closed eyes, trying to thrust the headache away.
It achieved nothing.
He blinked hard and said, ‘What is this shit?’
There weren’t many people around. His rich scion friends from Mexico were twiddling their thumbs in the corner of the alleyway, and all the girls had seemingly vanished like magic. No reason to hang around when the power was out and the usual luxurious hedonism couldn’t be maintained. The fridges weren’t running, so the Dom Pérignon was getting warm. They’d bailed at the first opportunity.
One of Rico’s bodyguards said, ‘The power’s out. Might be affecting the whole city. The networks are down, too.’
Rico lifted his gaze. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard me.’
‘The last part.’
‘The phones. They don’t work.’
‘So you can’t call my father?’
‘That’s right. He won’t be happy when we miss our check-in, but he’ll understand later. This blackout will make the news. If it lasts any longer, it might make international headlines.’
Rico didn’t hear any of what the man said after, “That’s right.” The pain needling behind his eyeballs receded. Only temporarily, but it went away for long enough to clear his head. And that’s when he recognised the opportunity. Possibly the last he’d ever have to disobey, to be reckless, to have fun.
Because in truth, this life was wearing on him. Pleasure meant nothing if you had too much of it. When he was younger he thought all the “money doesn’t buy happiness” talk was bullshit. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined it might get old to drink and do drugs and have sex with beautiful women — but it could, and it had. Not old enough to stop doing it — its allure was undeniable — but something he couldn’t put his finger on had been nagging at him for a long time, and now he understood what it was.
The chaos of life.
He’d never truly felt it. He’d caught snippets of it from time to time, but most of his raucous behaviour was carried out in a controlled environment. He was the golden child, after all, and his father understood that. There was a lot of leverage to be exploited if one of Guzmán’s rivals kidnapped his son. So the sicarios and the bodyguards and the henchmen went with him everywhere, and they watched him drink and smoke and fuck his life away. It was odd to outsiders, but he’d become used to them always being there, always watching like hawks, always sober, never partaking.
So, really, the partying wasn’t too crazy.
Because there was never the potential for anything really crazy to happen.
Like tonight.
Rico had received a taste of the chaos inside Palantir. Even though he’d been humiliated, stripped of his weapon and degraded in front of his own security, at least he’d felt alive in the process. Everyone thought he’d been skulking when he retreated to his booth after the bald guy had thrown him around like a puppet on strings. But really, he was savouring the adrenaline.
He was savouring the excitement.
So it clicked. He realised, The power’s out. We’re uncontactable. When am I going to get an opportunity like this again?
He eyed the sicarios.
They eyed him back.
He knew they knew.
But what were they going to do to stop him?
The eldest bodyguard said, ‘Don’t even think about it, kid.’
Rico was sick of it. All of it. Being told what to do, being told where to be, being told who to associate with. He might have listened to them if they’d been as loyal as puppy dogs. But they weren’t. They’d let the stranger humiliate him, and backed down from a fight. So he had no reason to hang around in their miserable company. They could fend for themselves and deal with the consequences when they got back to Mexico and had to explain to his father why he wasn’t with them.
He didn’t hesitate any longer.
He ran off down the alley and disappeared into the darkness, the remnants of coke and weed and booze still in his system, making him ambivalent to the consequences.
He heard his father’s men give chase, but he was genetically gifted with athleticism, and he used it.
He made it out into the busy street and vanished into the crowds of pedestrians.
Alone.
No supervision.
He audibly whooped with excitement. He couldn’t remember the last time there’d been nobody keeping tabs on him. He looked up and around, saw all the towering skyscrapers draped in shadow, like obelisks in the night. He’d never seen New York like this.
He’d never seen anything like this.
Savouring the anonymity of the crowds, he remembered the bag inside his jacket pocket, forgotten amidst the turbulence of the last thirty minutes. He hadn’t even thought about how he’d keep the party going, but now he gave thanks for it being there. Anything to delay the inevitable hangover. That’d ruin all the fun.
He took the small plastic ziplock bag out of his suit, opened it up, and dipped his pinky finger into the cocaine within. He was surrounded by people, but no one saw. Most of them had their phone flashlights firing, but the beams weren’t directed at Rico. They were aimed at the sidewalks beneath them, or up toward the sky. Almost everyone was awestruck by the dormant skyscrapers.
So when he scooped out a fingertip’s worth of the white powder and put it straight up his left nostril, no one batted an eyelid.
Even if they did see, no one wou
ld care.
Every socialite in New York City did coke. It wasn’t a special sight, not compared to what was going on all around them.
It hit immediately. He widened his eyes and rubbed another fingertip’s worth into his lower gums. He felt his heart beat harder in his chest, speeding up only slightly but thudding like it was turbocharged.
He smiled.
Life was good.
He was free.
He picked up speed, trying to find a quieter section of the city.
Looking for some trouble.
15
Slater stayed true to his word.
He bought two bottles of water from a street cart that had been hastily set up to accommodate the needs of the tens of thousands of people flowing out of buildings. The sidewalks were clogged with gesticulating civilians, and no one was getting anywhere in a hurry. Crowds had started to spill out into the roads themselves as everyone realised the gridlock traffic wasn’t easing up. It left drivers and passengers trapped in their cars, surrounded by hordes of pedestrians darting left and right across the roads. And this was just the start. Slater knew almost every vehicle in the city would be abandoned within hours. The reality was, no one was getting anywhere in these sorts of conditions. There were no functioning street lights. There were probably thousands of people trapped in elevators, so emergency services wouldn’t be focused on the roads.
No, for now, you could walk or you could sit in your vehicle with nowhere to go.
Already, people were locking up their cars and leaving them in the middle of the streets.
Slater sculled one bottle, sucking down twenty ounces of much-needed fluids, and then cracked open the second one. He dropped the first in a trash can and then broke into a jog, figuring his best bet was to sweat out some of the alcohol on the way back to the Upper East Side. It’d dehydrate him within minutes if he didn’t replenish his fluids, but he planned to keep buying water bottles along the way until his head stopped swimming and his equilibrium returned.
He had a feeling he’d need it.
It wasn’t comfortable, but nothing in his life was. He’d always favoured efficiency over comfort, and this was the shortest route to a clear head.
He kept running, trying to make sure no one panicked when they saw him blazing past. He worked his legs like pistons until he got his heart rate up to an appropriate level, and then he maintained that pace all the way from Midtown to the Upper East Side. Perspiration beaded on his forehead and soaked his undershirt. Instead of deterring him, it only motivated him to run faster. He kept pounding the pavement until he was drenched, and then he stumbled to a halt at an intersection packed with pedestrians and sucked down the second bottle of water.