“What is our city built of?” Samantha asked as they walked. “What’s down there, in its heart?”
“Do you remember the Red Star Scandal, Sam?” asked Hayes quietly.
“What? Yes, of course. Why?”
“Do you remember how, when they were asked how they knew the airship they’d made would work, they immediately said that they just knew?”
“Well, yes, but why…”
“How could they know,” said Hayes slowly, “unless it had already worked before? Maybe very, very long ago…”
Samantha thought about that. Then her eyes grew wide. “My God… Are you saying…”
Hayes swallowed and nodded.
“Then what could be down there?”
“I think it’s something alive,” Hayes said. “Genuinely alive, down under the city. I’ve… I’ve felt it. It’s trapped and broken and old, I think. It’s tried to speak to me, like that thing back there. But it can’t. It’s so old.”
“What could it be?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I have to find out.”
They found the ferry rocking gently on the night tide. The captain was sprawled in the back, a fishing pole in his lap, head nodding as sleep threatened to overtake him. Hayes picked up a stone and sent it ricocheting across the stern. The captain sputtered awake and then hauled them in, complaining with each heave.
“We have to get to Garvey,” Hayes said as the ferry started off. “We have to tell him that McNaughton has armed the unions. Maybe not all of them, but some, and enough. And we don’t know why.”
“We don’t?” she asked.
“No. We don’t.”
“What about that thing? That machine?”
“That’s why you’re going to go to Garvey,” he said. “I’m going up into the mountains to do some historical sightseeing. I’ll go visit Mr. Kulahee’s cave. I think it’s a tourist site these days. But no one there’s looking right. Not really. But I know how to.”
“How?”
“With this,” he said, and tapped the side of his head.
The boat sped over the waves, dipping up and down as it sloshed through the water. They saw the jeweled mass of Evesden rise up ahead, the glitter on the black shoreline growing with each mile. Both Hayes and Samantha stood at the stern, watching it approach with different eyes, as though it were a foreign land.
“Look!” cried Samantha suddenly, and pointed.
They both leaned forward to see it better. It was faint but it was there, a streak of the night sky that was a slightly lighter color than the rest, almost ash-gray. As they came closer they could see that where it met the cityscape the streak’s innards were red and molten and boiling. Then the cradle spotlights flashed along the column’s side and they saw it fully.
“It’s smoke,” Hayes said. “Jesus Christ, it looks like all of Lynn is on fire.”
“What the hell?” said the captain. “What the hell is going on?”
The boat veered closer to the bays of the city. They could hear screaming from far, far away. A whine like some insect, buzzing madly. Then a low-throated burst, and the column of smoke lit up.
“What the hell was that?” said Hayes.
“They’ve started,” Samantha said softly.
“What?”
“They’ve started. Don’t you see? They’ve started. The union men, with the guns. They’ve got them now and they’re using them.”
Bells rang somewhere and went unanswered. People rushed back and forth along the dock front, shouting to one another. Someone cackled somewhere and there was the sound of glass breaking and more screaming.
Hayes pulled out his gun as they came close to land. “Here,” he said, thrusting it toward her. “Take this. Get to Garvey. Just tell him what happened. Tell him what’s going on.” Hayes put one foot on the bow of the boat and waited for the captain to pull it in.
“What are you going to do?” asked Samantha.
“I’ve no idea,” he said. Then when he was near enough Hayes leaped down to the dock. He slipped and fell, recovered himself, and sprinted off toward the fire.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
It seemed as though in Hayes’s absence the city had become a different place. Some streets had no lights and were filled with complete darkness. Homes were being emptied and small crowds filed down alleys and lanes, though none seemed sure of where they were going. And on some darkened streets one could look far down the block and see distant building faces lit with the hellish glow of merry flames.
He managed to stop one young woman and force some sort of story out of her. “They took hostages,” she panted.
“Hostages? Who?”
“The union men. They stormed the Southeastern Office of McNaughton, tried to take hostages. Political hostages, they said. But things went wrong. The guns they had, they did something crazy. Hit a gas main.”
“Oh, God.”
“Everything’s on fire. You got to get out, mister. Got to get the hell out of this town before it all burns down.” Then she turned and fled and was gone.
Closer to the Southeastern the flow of the crowd was almost overpowering. Women clutching children or dragging them along. Men bowling one another over as they fought to escape the oncoming flames. As he crossed the Lynn Canal Hayes began to see fire trucks among the throngs of people, clanking, yellow contraptions piled with rubber tubing. They pulled up at the street sides and turned their nozzles toward the burning buildings and poured great gouts of sewer water through the windows. They seemed forced to work the fire at the edges, though; toward the Southeastern the inferno was immense, whole buildings crumbling under its onslaught, and in those places they could not venture close to the flames.
There was a noise from the burning end of the street like a thousand steam whistles ringing at once. One of the firemen screamed, “Get down!” and the entire crowd dropped to the cement, except for Hayes. He watched as one of the building faces lit up as if an entire spotlight were focusing on one square foot of the building’s facade. Then a white-hot spark flew from an alley across the street to strike the glowing spot and the building erupted like it had been hit with an artillery shell.
Hayes was blown backward off his feet and tumbled to the pavement. His ears rang and the street scene grew hazy and stuttered. He wondered what had happened before remembering that he was stunned. He took a deep breath, remembered what he had done under the same circumstances during his old life and the appropriate reaction, and wriggled his fingers and toes until the world became still again.
He rolled onto his belly and saw a man running out of the alley across from the building that had exploded, carrying something long and thin in his hands, like a short pike with a scooped blade at its end. One of the firemen screamed something and several policemen fought to their knees and began wildly firing at him. The man screamed, the shoulder of his overalls suddenly dotted with red, and he pointed the thin pike at them. There was the piercing whistling sound again and the end of the pike glittered white. The policemen fell to the ground. From the end of the pike a small spark the size of a thumb came shooting out, arcing over them and the street behind them, far up into the air where it burst like a firework, shrapnel spinning down to the city below. The man stopped and tried to rerig the device but was hampered by his dead arm. The police began firing again and there was a wet burst from the edge of the man’s neck and he sank to the ground and lay there. The police kept firing at him. His calf burst. Then his side, yet still they fired.
“What the hell sort of guns did they give them?” Hayes heard himself asking.
The damaged building caved in on itself. Hayes could see the shivering light of small fires dancing in its husk. The building next to it fell as well and more fire spilled down the street. One of the firemen shouted something and waved his hand and the crews began reeling in their lines to withdraw down the street. This neighborhood was lost, they called. The most they could do was contain it.