Apocalypse to Go

  Lights did gleam, however, out on Alcatraz, long regular rows of lights, in fact, in the prison buildings. I could guess that the local authorities still kept inmates out there. From that general direction I heard foghorns, a low slow note followed by two higher, quicker sounds. As the car clanged and clattered downhill, I stared out at the Marin headlands, where I was used to seeing the headlights from traffic winding up the highway from the bridge. None shone or moved in this alien night.

  At the terminus we left the cable car and walked fast down the dark sidewalk toward Aquatic Park, a semicircular harbor that backs up to the Fisherman’s Wharf area. Hendriks and Spare14 went first; I followed, while Ari took up the rear guard. In the pale light from sparse streetlights the park looked utterly strange to me. No concrete bleachers lined the eastern crescent, though I did see a few wooden benches. At the shallow water line, a dirt path and weeds replaced the sidewalk and the trim lawns I knew at home.

  On the western edge a tangle of trees stood some feet back from the water’s edge. When we reached it, Hendriks drew his gun. I glanced back and saw that Ari had done the same. My heart pounded briefly, but I talked myself into staying calm. As we walked past, I heard rustling in among the trees and overgrown shrubbery.

  Ari touched my arm and murmured, “Alert.” I did a quick SM:L.

  “Two people in there,” I whispered. “A man and a woman.”

  “Danger reading?”

  “No.” I felt Qi oozing from the thicket. “They’re having sex.”

  We walked on. The milk wagon stood a good distance beyond the trees, half-hidden by more shrubbery. Rather than a horse-drawn wagon, the big white tank rode on an actual truck, but it looked as jerry-rigged as all the gasoline vehicles in SanFran seemed to be. It had six wire-spoked wheels with narrow tires, protected by mismatched bumpers. The hood that covered the engine hung at an odd angle. Along one side ran the logo, “Albany Farms” in hand-painted blue letters. Yet when we walked up, I could hear the quiet whisper of a perfectly tuned generator and the soft bubbling sound of the aerator that kept the water inside oxygenated.

  A young man opened the driver’s side door and jumped down from the truck’s cab. In the dim light from Spare14’s flashlight I got only a general impression of him: skinny, ill dressed in faded jeans and a sweater, a mop of straight dark hair.

  “Police,” Spare14 snapped. “Do you have a permit to park here, or is this a Section Fourteen violation?”

  “I do, sir,” the guy said. “My name is Russ Davis, and the permit’s number seventeen fifty-four.”

  “Very good.” Spare14 smiled at him. “How have things been going?”

  “Okay. Javert’s getting real antsy, though, in this smaller tank. Can’t say I blame him.”

  “This is O’Grady, the psychic.” Spare14 nodded in my direction. “Can she speak with him?”

  “Sure. He’ll be glad to meet her, I reckon.” Russ turned and opened the passenger side door of the truck cab. “Climb in, Miss. The view window’s right behind the seat. Just pull the curtain to one side. Javert’ll turn on the light when you do.”

  I climbed into the cab, which smelled like pepperoni, probably from the world-walker’s supper, and followed instructions. As soon as I reached for the curtain, I felt Javert’s mind touch mine. Light flashed on behind the circular view port. I knelt on the seat cushions and peered through glass into pale greenish water.

  I’d been expecting Javert to be large, not kraken-sized, no, but comparable somehow to a human male. In actuality, he was about four feet long, not counting his two extensible tentacles. Those, I found out later, he could whip ahead of him for another six feet. While he looked squidlike, he had some features in common with cuttlefish, too. It was obvious from the moment we met that he belonged to a species as different from calamari as we were from lemurs.

  Overall, Javert had the shape and silvery color of a torpedo, fronted by a cluster of short tentacles, but his actual head appeared nearly spherical from the large brain inside it. His eyes were huge and pale yellow. They sat forward on his face rather than lying on either side of his head as those of the lower orders of squid do. I assumed that he had binocular vision. The two long tentacles curled up like Princess Leia braids next to his cheeks.

  All down his back ran a structure sort of like a fish’s fin, though it lacked bones. About four inches high, it waved gently in the water. When we began conversing, the fin was a silvery-blue color. I say we conversed, but words had little to do with it. Javert’s people certainly had language, and at times he made various sounds that I could dimly hear through the glass. Mostly, however, we exchanged images and feelings punctuated by the words I thought to him in English, which he understood as long as I kept the thoughts simple.

  Javert began by sending me a wave of sympathy over my missing brothers. Because of the Qi transfer earlier, he’d been able to pick up my anxiety. I thanked him aloud. He managed to ask me, after a few attempts at making his meaning clear, if I was sure that Michael and Sean were still alive—still swimming in the ocean of life, is how he phrased it.

  I’d know if they had died.

  He radiated his belief in what I’d told him.

  I had a vision earlier. It seemed to link them to the ocean.

  I sent him an image of the beach and distant rock or hill that I’d seen in trance. His fin color brightened to green, and he waved his short tentacles in what I took as excitement.

  You think this means they’re near the ocean, too?

  He sent back: YES. A WHERE ON COAST.

  I was so shocked by receiving actual words that it took me a moment to understand. I eventually made a guess: You mean a place on the coast somewhere?

  YES.

  The California coast is kind of long.

  He sent a feeling of sad agreement.

  Still, I bet they’re near the water somewhere. Hendriks owes you a salmon. Don’t let him forget.

  Javert’s fin changed to yellow with a ripple of green dots. I could feel his good humor. He spread his short tentacles to give me a glimpse of his circular mouth, ringed with triangular teeth, then bunched them again as he beamed me the concept, DELICIOUS.

  I grinned. By the way, Hendriks is here.

  Javert showed me an image of Hendriks climbing into the cab.

  I leaned out the open door. “Jan,” I said, “he wants to talk with you.”

  I slid over and scrunched myself up against the steering wheel to allow Hendriks the room to clamber into the truck. He bumped his head on the roof, swore in a Germanic language that I took to be Dutch, then knelt on the seat and arranged himself reasonably comfortably in order to look through the view window. He put both hands up to his mouth and wiggled his fingers like tentacles at Javert, who responded in kind. They both laughed, each in their own way.

  I supplemented with images what Hendriks said and translated Javert’s images and feelings in turn. Eventually, we came up with a plan.

  Since the fishing fleet had tucked itself up for the night in the harbor, Javert could safely return to the bay. There he’d be able to draw upon the vast reservoir of water Qi, which he could transfer to me as necessary to ward off the effects of the StopCollar.

  I’d been wondering how we were going to get Javert into the bay without attracting the wrong kind of attention. Jan and I left the truck and joined Ari and Spare14. The four of us walked down to the water line at a darkish spot between two streetlights. Davis backed the truck with its tank up to the water as close as he dared with those thin and rickety tires and wheels to consider. He killed the engine and joined us on the ground.

  “Someone watching,” he said to Spare14.

  I turned around and saw a man and woman standing halfway up the slope of lawn behind us. Ari drew his gun and took a couple of strides toward them.

  “Hey, suckers!” he called out in a credible SanFran accent. “Want to join the stiff in the water?”

  “No, sir!” the man said. “Just passing by. Sorry.
Don’t shoot!”

  She kicked off her high heels, bent and grabbed them, then ran in a zigzag pattern up the slope to the street above. The guy backed away, hands in the air, then spun around and raced after her. From their Qi, I got the impression that they were the couple we’d passed in the thicket.

  “Charming place.” Ari holstered the gun. “I just told them we were dumping a corpse, and it made a good cover story.”

  Davis walked around to the back of the truck. He fiddled with a handle, then opened a tiny door to reveal a keypad. When he punched in code, I heard a lock click and a door creak deep inside the tank. I sensed Javert’s words inside my mind.

  “He’s ready,” I said.

  A door snapped open. A mechanism hummed and extruded a long tube of flexible material similar to a fire hose but much wider. Javert streaked out of the tube’s mouth in a jet of water. He landed in the bay with a splash and ripple about ten feet from shore. I felt his profound relief at being out of the travel tank as he jetted out into deeper water. Davis punched in more code and retracted the tube.

  “When we bring him back in,” Davis said, “it’ll suck up some fresh water along with him to replace what we just lost.”

  “Brilliant,” Ari said. “By the way, where did he pick up the name Javert?”

  “Oh, he saw some old movie version of that French book. I reckon he had a different take on it than most folks, though.”

  I walked down to the water’s edge and leaned against the side of the tank. Out in the bay, Javert circled around and jetted back in my direction. He stopped some distance away, where, or so he indicated, the water was deep enough for something he called “a good hover.” He spent a few minutes harvesting Qi, then signaled that I could begin.

  I ran an SM:P for Michael. I sent my mind out and right away picked up a trace of him, a clear signal that led me to move in closer. Javert funneled Qi my way, which I sucked up and stabilized. An image appeared in my mind. Javert signaled that he, too, could receive it.

  I saw as if I were looking through a peephole into the crowded, brightly lit room where a couple of dozen people were throwing a party. I could hear nothing, but in one corner a couple was dancing to what must have been rock music, judging from the way they twisted and turned in rhythm. Michael was lounging on a sofa with a nearly naked blonde girl draped across his lap. One of his hands rested on her bare midriff, and the other held a bottle of beer.

  You little snot! I was only thinking to myself, but Javert “overheard,” as it were. I felt his puzzlement.

  My brother has a girl back home who’s devoted to him, and here he is, messing around with someone else.

  Javert radiated amusement but “said” nothing.

  Nearby in an armchair sat a big bear of a man with gray hair, a sparse mustache, and gray beard. Although he smiled at my brother, his blue eyes were as cold and sharp as shards of ice. Every now and then he glanced unsmiling over his shoulder, maybe making sure that no one was creeping up on him.

  CELEBRATING? Javert beamed.

  Yeah, I thought in return. Sure could be.

  Michael felt my presence. I sensed him go tense, then grin, then cover his reaction by swigging from the bottle. He looked slantwise at the man in the armchair, then repeated the gesture twice. The Axeman, I thought—not that Michael could hear me think the word. Our mental overlap only went so far.

  I shifted focus, looking for Sean, and finally found him, sitting on the floor in the opposite corner from the dancers. He was wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a necklace, a thin flat band of polished white gold that had to be the StopCollar. The idea, I supposed, was that even if he somehow managed to get away, he wouldn’t get far without shoes and a shirt in the foggy night.

  Although I could see Sean, I could pick up not the slightest trace of his mind or aura. From his slumped posture and the way he kept closing his eyes, only to jerk them open again, I could see that he was exhausted and maybe severely depressed.

  I felt the sudden touch of another mind on my own. The ASTA alarm started ringing.

  OUT! Javert yelled—well, a psychic yell, but a yell nonetheless.

  I pulled back fast and shut down the SM.

  GOOD! QUICK ENOUGH. NOT FOLLOW US.

  Real good, yeah, I sent in return. I gotta talk to Jan about this.

  I called the TWIXT team over to the side of the tank. In the dim light from the distant streetlamps I could read nothing from Hendriks’ face, but an SPP told me that he was both surprised and worried by the news that Storm Blue had a psychic watchman. He thought hard and long after I explained what had happened.

  “I need to check in with HQ,” Jan said. “Obviously, our data on Storm Blue has become out-of-date. Huh. I wonder if they’ve kidnapped other psychics?”

  “Or simply recruited some,” Ari said.

  “Recruited one, anyway,” I said. “His mind felt familiar. I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I’d bet big money that it’s the Maculate again. The guy who broke up my LDRS, the guy we saw on our steps.”

  Ari swore.

  “If so, our Spottie may have overplayed his hand.” Jan considered this for some seconds longer. “Nola, tell me. What sort of danger reading do you get from this situation?”

  “Severe.”

  BIG THINGS IN MIND. PLANS.

  “Javert thinks that Storm Blue might have big things in mind, some kind of master plan.”

  “Let us hope not! But he might be right. Tell him we’d better find out.”

  I did. Javert expressed satisfaction.

  After a brief conference, Javert and I decided that running another scan might present more dangers than benefits. So that Jan and Ari could guard the operation, we stayed in the park until Davis returned Javert safely to his tank.

  “We’ll be heading back to One,” Davis said to Spare14. “We’ll come back here tomorrow, but I think we’ll settle somewhere down by the ocean. Javert’ll tell O’Grady where, when we find a good spot.”

  Davis hopped back into the truck and started the engine. They drove off west, following the curve of the water line, with the truck bouncing and jouncing on the uneven dirt road. No wonder Javert hated the tank! I received the impression that he was thinking of ejecting his stomach contents before they finally reached a paved area that led up to the smooth street.

  “We’d best get back,” Spare14 said. “The last cable car runs around eleven-thirty.”

  We caught a car down at the Fisherman’s Wharf terminus with no trouble and rode safely back to our stop on Mason. We headed down Broadway, a strangely silent street of shabby apartment houses. After a few blocks I received a SAWM, distant at first, stronger when we reached Columbus.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said. “Someone may be waiting for us.”

  Ari and Jan both drew their Berettas. Ari drifted forward, Jan drifted back, and Spare14 laid a hand on my shoulder and guided me to stay in the middle with him. My stomach clenched in a fear that had nothing to do with psychism. I was thinking of Nuala, shot and dismembered just to challenge the man who loved her.

  We walked past the bookstore to the mouth of the alley. I could see someone leaning against a wall about halfway down. The SAWM doubled. I stopped walking and glanced behind me. Jan turned around to keep watch from the rear.

  “Bad news,” I whispered.

  Ari fired, one quick shot into the plaster wall next to and about the level of the lurker’s ankles. The person screamed, danced away from the spray of plaster chips, and threw her hands in the air—a young woman, I realized from the sound of her voice. In one hand she was clutching an object that gleamed like metal.

  “Drop the weapon!” Ari called out.

  In the building behind her, a light flashed in an upstairs window, then went right out again. By the brief flare I saw a woman dressed in a short skirt and a tight jacket.

  “Ain’t got no gun,” she said. “It be a flashlight.”

  “Drop it anyway.”

  She bent
her knees in a half squat and placed the flashlight on the ground. I got the impression that it was too expensive to risk breaking. She raised both hands again and stood up. When Ari gestured with the Beretta, she walked toward us with hesitant little steps on high heels.

  “Hey,” she said. “Why you so uptight? Can’t a girl turn a trick in peace?”

  “Do you expect me to believe that?” Ari paused to look her over. “How many johns come down this alley?”

  She wrinkled her nose in a pout, then lowered her arms and set her hands on her hips. I placed her age at around fifteen.

  “A flashlight, is it?” Ari went on. “Trying to get a good look at someone?”

  I could see her tighten like a strung wire.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s exactly what she was trying to do.”

  The girl swayed a little to one side to look around Ari. “Shit,” she said. “You ain’t Nuala.”

  “Damn right,” I said. “Who thought I was?”

  “Lot of people, honey, just a lot of people wondering. Chief Hafner, he pay big money to get her back.”

  “He can raise people from the dead?”

  I laughed. She laughed as well, a creaky little sound.

  “Who paid you?” Ari said. “I gather you wanted to shine the light in Rose’s face for a look, then run back to your boss.”

  “I ain’t gonna tell you nothing more. It’ll cost my life if I rat.”

  Ari glanced at me. “She’s telling the truth,” I said.

  “Then pick up your flashlight and go,” Ari said. “And tell whoever it is that Rose’s Jamaican pimp wants him to sod off.”

  She laughed, quite naturally this time. “I will, good-looking,” she said. “That’s pretty damn funny.”

  She minced off, paused to grab the flashlight, and headed out of the alley. Spare14 let out his breath in a puff of relief. He took out his key ring and used his own flashlight to find the locks on the two doors. I ran an SM:L on the apartment: no one was lurking there. I’ll admit to feeling more than a little relieved once we got safely upstairs. Spare14 drew the drapes over the window before he turned on the floor lamp.