Steiner was still talking.
“…Mr. Achleson,” he said, rising to his feet. He watched Michael open the office door. “There’s no need to take things so hard. I’m sure there are sanitary cleaning employers who would be happy to enlist your particular services. But I would appreciate it if you would not take my pen with you.”
“What?” Michael said, too busy watching the northern sky roil and listening to the sounds echo across the downtown core. A lime-green tail about 20 feet long swung out from behind the Excel building, below the enflamed floor. Two more pterodactyls circled the Parliament tower, chasing each other like children in a game of tag. They soared toward Steiner’s building and overhead in a rush of wind. The glass rattled in its frame. A car honked repeatedly below. An alarm shrieked.
“Please return the pen, Mr. Aversyon,” Mr. Steiner said. He stood stoically, refusing to face the chaos behind him. “It’s merely another shift in the space-time continuum. There’s nothing like the Dinosaur Age to liven up your schedule.”
Michael looked down at the golden pen. He held it in a white-knuckled grip in his right hand. He looked back up at the window. A pterodactyl soared into the canyon of skyscrapers. It flapped its wings the size of tarpaulins with a sound of thunder. As it passed the window, Michael saw its fungus-green hide the texture of leather, and its beady, yellow eyes with black pupils
“My name is Michael Atinkson, you sorry, sanctimonious, son of a bitch,” Michael said. “Here’s your pen!”
Steiner’s face dropped. His fat chin resembled a bobbing apple.
Michael threw the pen at him. The pen flipped through the air, caught a glint of sunlight, and bounced off the space between Steiner’s eyes.
The nearby pterodactyl returned to view, passing from left to right, then veering toward the window. The light from the pen reflected off its cocked, soccer-ball-sized eye. The creature vanished from sight.
Steiner teetered backward, stunned and confused, his eyes closed and his mouth slack.
The deafening sound of giant, thrashing wings came from down the street.
Michael, having seen the winged creatures circle the tower and pass twice, saw with clarity what was happening. It’s circling the block, he thought, a cold sensation in his gut, and coming back for another pass.
He stifled a scream and opened the door behind him. Steiner rubbed his own forehead.
“Run!” said Michael.
Steiner blinked and watched, blank-eyed. “Don’t be afraid of change, son,” he said.
Michael slammed the door.
He ran past the spacious reception lobby to the two elevators in the nearby hallway and hit the “Down” button between the doorways repeatedly. The doors opened. Michael leapt in, threw himself back to the wall and screwed his eyes shut. The doors shut with a skidding sound. The elevator descended.
He was out of breath and his heart was still running a sprint even though he had stopped.
The orchestral sound of glass shattering in Steiner’s fifteenth-floor office did not occur until the elevator had descended two more floors. Someone yodeled in pain. Plaster clattered the top of the elevator with a sound like hailstones.
Michael was hyperventilating. The elevator descended. The sounds continued distantly, a heavy object bouncing off the roof every few seconds. Someone gripped his shoulder with warm, strong, reassuring fingers. He opened his eyes, heart hammering.
Michael turned to see a tall, black man with long dreadlocks standing in front of the elevator panel. The stranger removed his yellow headphones with his free hand. He looked at Michael imploringly with dark blue eyes.
“It will be okay,” he said calmly. The stranger cocked his ear as though about to shake water out of it. He looked up and squinted one eye. “Yes, it will be okay now.” He nodded repeatedly.
Michael recognized the gesture and noticed the stranger’s long, dark sideburns and trim goatee. Michael’s face must have given him away; the man produced a card from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it over.
“I knew it,” the stranger said. A wide, friendly grin spread on his face. “You were on the bus today. Call this number when you’re ready. There are a lot of us out here.”
Michael looked at the card as the elevator reached bottom.
A “ding” sounded. The doors opened. He looked up as the man removed his hand from Michael’s shoulder and stepped out, still smiling.
“Knew what?” Michael asked, baffled.
“That you were one of us. It’s a look you get with the conditions. We see the conditions coming, and we think we can probably even stop them.”
“But that would mean that people could control—,” Michael began.
The stranger nodded slowly. “Call us. See for yourself. That is, if you’re ready for a change from—” He nodded upward with a mock grimace, meaning the office building. “—this.”
Michael stared at him, the unspoken words from his own reply still on his lips.
“I knew it,” the stranger said, disappearing into the crowded, tumultuous lobby.
Michael scurried out past four tall, wide-shouldered firemen who inspected the elevator. He drifted outside through the jostling work crowd, which was also intent on leaving.
What did he mean? thought Michael. It had always felt like he was on the outside, broke, over-skilled, and unable to find work. It had felt like Michael would never find work. Putting the beige business card, which had only an eight-digit number typed in large, black figures, in his front pocket, he looked up and ended his self-pity.
A long fire truck blocked one end of the block. Just past the rig, an overturned car had impaled the side of a bus head-first. Flames licked up from the centre of the bus. A team of firefighters surrounded the accident, barking orders and aiming a hose at the blaze from either side. Paramedics carried people away on stretchers to waiting ambulances with flashing lights. Shattered glass covered the rest of the block, crunching under rushing feet. He didn’t have to look up to know where the glass had come from.
Michael looked in the other direction. A red-brick, four-storey apartment building had a circular hole in the corner between the third and fourth floor. Chunks of brick, wood and plastic littered the intersection below. A white fridge was visible in the apartment, covered with magnets shaped like lady bugs, as well as multi-colored sheets of paper. Across from the fridge stood a bookcase covered with chunks of brick, plaster and wood.
The birds of prey had done their damage here, too, Michael thought. He felt strangely disappointed to know the sources of all the noise he had heard while in Steiner’s office. Deciding he was only mildly concerned about what must have happened to Steiner, Michael walked toward the damaged apartment building.
The sounds of sirens, spraying water, yells and moans carried over the street in a pastiche of controlled chaos. A light spray permeated the humid block—part ash, part water and part debris. Michael coughed dryly. People scurried past. A Chinese man in a bomber vest stumbled into him and looked up, showing the rings beneath his eyes. He mumbled to himself before lurching away, his paunchy face streaked with dirt and tears.
“It will be okay,” Michael said, but the man was much further down the block already.
With that statement, Michael realized what his job was. His problem had always been looking in the wrong places. Time to get home, Michael thought. I’ve got work to do.