We stick the needle in and plunge it down.
“Yes, there.” Hargreave’s avatar is almost purring. “The Tunguska Iteration.”
Everything goes fuzzy.
“The key to all gates . . .”
Everything goes black.
There in the void, Nathan Gould is with me. Whining.
“Here? They were here, in New York, all along?”
“Their dormant systems were, yes, Nathan.” Hargreave speaks slowly, patiently, as if explaining the facts of life to a special-needs child. “One of their cottages, and the quantum port facility to transmit themselves aboard. You think I’m based in this cesspit city because I like it here?”
Red clay carpet, going in and out of focus. Some weird pattern on it, like birds. Never noticed that before.
“Why didn’t you warn someone?”
“Warn whom, Nathan? Humanity at large? The species that has proven so bracingly honest with itself in the face of unpleasant truths? That race so quick to accept the facts about population growth and resource overconsumption and climate change? No, thank you very much, I preferred to trust only myself, and a few handpicked men.”
I’m back on my knees. I’m back on my feet.
“A few handpicked men. Right. And look what it’s brought us to. Look what you’ve done, old man. They’re here, you—”
“That’s right, Nathan! The owners are back—”
They are, too. I can see where that flickering is coming from now: the dark sky above those overhead panes, strobing to gray. I can see insectile shapes backlit against the clouds, scampering and leaping across the skylights. I can see the blinding blue sparks of arc-welding torches.
“—waking the systems, firing up the boiler. Back to spring-clean the old family residence, and not much liking what they’ve found festering behind the fridge.”
A Ceph gunship eclipses the moon. It hangs in the sky like a segmented crucifix, lining up the shot.
“And really. Can you blame them?”
The gunship cuts loose. All those superstrong reinforced windowpanes fall to earth in a shower of jagged glass.
Wind and rain and Ceph infantry cascade into Hargreave’s inner sanctum. The wizard on the wall welcomes them with a giddy laugh: “Ah, the angels of death at last! My escort back to human frailty! It took you long enough!”
They’re not just interested in him, though. Not judging by the fire I’m taking.
The flames are already rising. Stalkers and grunts leap across the chamber toward me like eager Dobermans. I flee up a metal staircase to a catwalk that accesses the upper reaches of all these bookshelves; it’s high ground at least, a place to shoot back from, a hill to die on. I don’t expect to find a way out but there it is, jammed into the narrow space between two bookcases: a backstage exit, an emergency stairwell, cinder-block walls and concrete steps and ventilation ducts running up the shaft like tendons.
Hargreave’s avatar urges me on: “Become Prophet! Take on his armor! Strike for your species, for humanity in all its fumbling, half-made glory! Go, go! Save us all!”
I charge up the stairs past spinning emergency beacons. The building shakes around me.
“This is Jacob Hargreave to all CELL personnel. Commander Lockhart is dead, I will be joining him shortly, and the Prism facility is wired to self-destruct. Subject Prophet is now your only hope of turning back the alien invasion. You will therefore afford him every assistance you can as you evacuate this island.”
That’s nice of him. I wonder if anyone’s listening.
Some machine—some other machine—starts a countdown in a cool feminine voice: “All Prism facilities will explosively self-seal in ten minutes. Your employee duties are terminated. Please exit via the indicated channels.”
Plenty of time to make it to the helipad, I’m thinking. Right up until Tara Strickland checks in to tell me that the whole damn roof’s been trashed. The Ceph have left nothing flyable up there at all. “I’m heading for the Queensboro Bridge,” she tells me. “Meet me on the far side if you can.”
The Ceph are everywhere. So are CELL, and it really doesn’t matter whether they heard Hargreave’s last orders or not; we’re all just animals in a forest fire now, all just trying to keep ahead of the flames, and there’s no predators and no prey when you’re all about to be burned alive. We run like hell; we shoot at Squids when they get in our way. Countdown Girl pops onto the channel every now and then with timely updates that All Prism facilities will explosively self-seal in eight minutes, seven minutes, six minutes, but it’s not like we need to be reminded. We get it already.
Someone says something about a service elevator, a way onto the Queensboro Bridge. I don’t know where it is and nobody’s feeding me waypoints but it’s easy enough to follow the herd. A little less easy, maybe, when the herd keeps getting thinned out from above.
The elevator turns out to be right where the bridge crosses the eastern edge of the island. Three CELL are crowded around the lower doors when I arrive, repeatedly stabbing the call button. They bring up their weapons the moment they catch sight of me; I bring up mine. We stand there waving our dicks at each other, wondering about appropriate battlefield etiquette at times like these. Countdown Girl says two minutes.
The elevator arrives. We pile in. Someone pushes UP, again and again and again. Someone else pushes CLOSE DOORS.
We start moving.
There’s one of those old speakers bolted to the frame, you know the ones that look like big square megaphones. There’s Muzak coming out of it, a Nine Inch Nails cover done entirely with violins and pan flute. Countdown Girl says one minute.
I bring up my Grendel and shoot out the speaker. One of the CELLs says, “Thanks.”
Then we’re on the bridge, and it’s every man for himself.
I’ve got every goddamn capacitor in the suit dedicated to speed—maybe twenty seconds at maximum sprint before the juice runs out. The bridge is taking fire from below, fire from above. Ceph tracers fill the air with streams of bright hyphens. The bridge is jammed with abandoned vehicles, some gutted, some still burning: cars, cube vans, semis. I think I see a pinger through the struts and girders, stalking down the oncoming lane; I know I see a gunship swooping in for another run.
Countdown Girl runs out of things to say.
Turns out the lady was a real mistress of understatement. The Prism facilities do not explosively self-seal. They blow sky-fucking-high, and they take the whole damn bridge with them.
It heaves under me, buckles in the middle. Fire boils up from below. All those great iron girders, the arches and trusses and studded yellow I-beams, crumple around me like origami. A tanker truck shoots by like a space shuttle and gets caught up in a web of burning metal. I try to keep running but I can’t even stand, it’s like balancing on the back of a harpooned whale. The bridge tears apart around me and I go over the edge, barely manage to catch myself on an exposed strut while an Airstream trailer sails past on its way to the river. I hang by my fingertips, too drained to haul myself back up, hoping against hope that the N2 manages to build back a charge before the spreading heat turns me to slag. I have a pretty good view of what’s left of Roosevelt Island, though. It’s hell on earth, it’s fire on the water. I can’t see a single recognizable feature through all those flames. When they burn down—if they ever do—there won’t be anything left but a mound of glass.