We passed overhead. We didn’t see any other places that had burned, but all were in a neglected condition. Eventually, in the distance, skyscrapers emerged.
“I wonder,” I said, “if Rick Harding saw this.”
“Maybe he missed this part of the world.”
“I’ve got a creepy suspicion it’s like this everywhere.”
“So who was on the radio?”
“I don’t know. But if he see this, why didn’t he ever say anything?”
“I have no idea, Chase.”
We stared out at the approaching towers. The forest was dissolving into a plain. A herd of animals that resembled buffalo except that they had gray fur wandered around munching vegetation. We saw more hills and caught glimpses of an ocean on the far side of the city. A two-lane highway came in from our left and eventually absorbed the road. There were occasional abandoned cars.
Houses multiplied. And more intersecting roads appeared. The houses were mostly fenced. We touched down and inspected one. It appeared to be made of plastic.
Finally we were over the city. It was also quiet. We saw only the usual birds and other animals.
The towers were located primarily near the coastline. A long bridge connected with an island, where more tall buildings rose into the sky. There were beaches, both on the mainland and on the island, but they too were empty. Sheltered platforms, probably lifeguard stations, were visible in both places.
We circled the area. Finally, Gabe pointed at a landing pad atop one of the skyscrapers. “Let’s set down there,” he said.
It was about forty stories high. We descended onto the pad, climbed out, listened for a minute to the rumble of the surf, and followed a ramp down to the roof. We passed a parking area half-filled with vehicles that must have had antigravity units, and ultimately arrived at a metal door. It had a latch. Gabe released it and pulled. But the door didn’t move. I had both weapons with me. I showed him the laser. “You think we should?”
He didn’t like the idea. Instead he banged on the door, waited a minute, and tried again. There was no sound of movement inside. “I hate doing this,” he said.
“How about we go down and park in the street? Try the front doors?”
“How much fuel do we have?”
“It’s not a problem.”
“All right. Let’s do that.”
The street-level entrance consisted of two pairs of glass doors. The glass was broken in two of them. The doors were set back between large display areas also with broken glass. Whatever had been on display was gone.
Getting through the doors was no problem. We walked into a lobby. Chairs and tables were distributed around the room. All were too large to accommodate us. A long counter on our left extended almost the length of the interior. Elevators were at the far end. One was open with only the shaft exposed. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.
Gabe walked over to the elevators while I went behind the counter. Two computers were built into it. I played around with one and the screen lit up. “Hey, Gabe,” I said. “We’ve got power.”
“Excellent.” He looked happy. There was a ramp at the far end of the elevators. Like the rest of the interior, it was covered with dust and occasional debris. Broken furniture, discarded tools, and a couple of skeletons. We followed the ramp to the second floor and entered a corridor. I jumped when a ceiling light came on.
We tried knocking on doors, but no one answered. Eventually we went up to the third floor and did the same thing with the same result. Finally we used a laser to cut through one of the doors into an apartment. There was carpeting, which had rotted due to rain coming through a pair of broken windows. There were also two outsized armchairs. A large electronic device that was probably an HV stood against one wall. It had two lamps, neither of which worked. There was also a bathroom. With a skeleton inside blocking the door. A second skeleton was lying facedown. “What the hell happened here?” Gabe asked.
“I’ve no idea,” I said. “But I think we should go back to the ship, go home, and let somebody else come back to figure it out.”
I guess both of us were impacted by a morbid curiosity. We took down another door and were happy to discover no more remains. But it was enough. Neither of us had much interest in walking away from an unresolved mystery, but I think by then we just wanted to leave. We returned down the corridor, descended on the ramp, and walked through the lobby toward the front doors.
The sun was directly overhead. Gabe led the way outside, saw something, grunted, and stopped in his tracks. “Where the hell . . . ?”
“What’s wrong?” I said.
He got out of my way so I could see. The lander was missing. We hurried out into the street and looked in both directions. Nothing was moving. Then I called Belle. “Where are you?”
There was no answer.
XXV.
We stood for several minutes, while a sense of utter helplessness crushed us. To our left, a few blocks away we could see the ocean. In the opposite direction, the street continued indefinitely through the city. I tried again to call Belle but got no response.
We looked at each other and exchanged comments about how this could not have happened. It was crazy. I looked up at the tops of the buildings. At the sky. And at the sun. There was no movement anywhere. A group of about thirty small birds sat on window ledges three and four floors up directly across from us. “It couldn’t have been stolen,” Gabe said. “How could they have gotten past Belle?”
“I wouldn’t have thought it was possible,” I said. “She’d have shut it down if someone had tried.” I stared out at the empty streets. “So I guess I was wrong.”
“She got hacked.”
“It’s the only thing I can think of.”
“I can’t imagine what else might have happened. We’re probably going to have to upgrade the technology.”
“Let’s hope we get the chance.”
The air was hot. There was some wind off the ocean, but it wasn’t enough to compensate. We went back inside the hotel and sat down in the lobby, positioned so we could see through the front doors. It was too warm in there also, but at least we were out of the sunlight.
We were both in a state of shock. I’d never before felt so helpless. “I miss the air-conditioning,” I said.
“There wasn’t any air-conditioning in here.”
“I was talking about the lander.”
“Oh.” He closed his eyes for a minute. Then: “Chase, we have no way of bringing the down, do we?”
“Not if we can’t get Belle to talk to us.”
Periodically one of us got up, walked over to the door, and looked outside. I spent time trying to call her. “Belle, where are you?” Eventually, if the yacht was still orbiting, it would be overhead again. I couldn’t be sure precisely when. We wouldn’t have been able to see it, and I hadn’t checked to find out how long it would take to complete an orbit. So I kept calling. I tried every few minutes. But we got nothing. After a while we started getting desperate. “It should have passed us by now,” I said. “I think they took over the ship as well.”