So we float upward, through young rock and dark dirt and into the lowest depths of a once-great city. We pass through stagnant water tunnels and ancient brick sewage pipes clogged with century-spanning strata of shit, then up into the dense web of cables that were the neurons of New York’s brain before a thousand bullets silenced its thoughts.
Now New York is mindless. Gray and rotting. An undead city walking without purpose, repeating echoes of its former life until they’re worn beyond recognition, and always, always seeking flesh.
We breach the surface and the noise hits us, a human density rarely found in the new world. The queue forms somewhere in the muck of the Jersey City Bayou, condenses on the floating Holland Footbridge, and spills out into a cramped mess of fear and desperation against the Manhattan border gate.
It’s here, within sight of the razor wire fence and its weary customs agents, that we find the boy and his new guardians. They stand in a small park in a crowd of battered refugees, carrying only overstuffed backpacks after hiding their van in a suburban garage. There is no room for vehicles in this coveted real estate. There is barely room for people. Every inch of Manhattan has been put to use, eighty-floor high-rises converted into tenements, parks into high-yield corn fields, the streets themselves into sprawling tent cities. Only the scythe of the modern mortality rate creates vacancies for the crowd outside. Concrete flood barriers form a wall around the island, and the swollen East River and Hudson surround it like invading armies, splashing over the top in every stiff breeze. Submerged to her chest, Lady Liberty is no longer a proud torchbearer standing tall for freedom. She is a drowning swimmer waving for help.
“Electricity,” Gebre says. “Plumbing. Law enforcement. And zero undead hordes.”
Gael sighs and picks his pack off the muddy grass as the line advances. “Yeah.”
“They won’t put us on salvage crews. There has to be thousands of kids in there and they will need teachers.”
“Hopefully for more diverse subjects than they did in UT-AZ. My doctorate doesn’t qualify me to teach rifle maintenance.”
“Gael, Gael, Gael,” Gebre says, gesturing grandly to the crumbled high-rises beyond the fence. “It’s New York City.”
The boy watches his guardians through a dark veil. On their insistence, he is once again hiding behind his Ray-Bans. He has not spoken since they deterred him from DC, but not because he’s angry. He could have left them if he chose to and finished his journey alone, but he stayed with them. He followed them here to this sinking island of denial, tilting his ear to some obscure suggestion. A voice from the deep halls of the Library, the rustling of countless pages forming a whisper.
“What do you think, Rover?” Gebre asks. “You want to go to school? I can teach you wars and governments, Gael can teach you quarks and bosons. All kinds of useless things!”
The boy is not listening. He is looking south down Canal Street, at a procession of white commuter vans. The boy sees the grim faces of the drivers, but the passengers are only silhouettes. He peers hard at the tinted windows, trying to penetrate the glass.
“Ages and skills,” the customs agent says, approaching Gebre with a clipboard.
“I’m forty-three,” Gebre replies. “Gael’s thirty-four, and Rover’s . . . ten.”
“I taught quantum physics at Brown University,” Gael says.
The agent looks up blankly. “We don’t have any need for—”
“Applied quantum physics,” Gebre interjects, flashing a smile. “He can . . . design better bullets?”
Gael stares coldly at the agent. The agent makes a mark on his board. “And you?” he grunts toward Gebre without looking up.
“Gun maintenance,” Gebre says, still grinning.
“My husband is being modest,” Gael says with a subdued ferocity. “He has a doctorate in world history.”
Gebre sighs. “Fine, yes, I’m a historian. And I’m also very good at cleaning M16s.”
The agent glances between him and Gael. He makes another mark on his board. “We’ll find you something. Always new openings in Salvage.”
Gael and Gebre exchange a glance.
“And what about the boy here, is he—”
The agent drops his clipboard.
The boy is staring hard at the vans as they wait in front of a service gate. His sunglasses are in his hand. His impossible eyes are wide, trying to drill through the vans’ tinted glass and see the people inside, because somewhere in today’s haul of agitators and underperformers, there is a signal, a beacon, like someone is trying to tell him something.
And are we trying to tell him something? Are we speaking to him now? A book speaks whenever someone reads it, and only its reader knows what it has said.
A hand clamps onto the boy’s shoulder.
“I’ve got another uncategorized,” the agent says into his walkie. “Juvenile. Severe iris gilding. Sending him your way.”
“Let go of him!” Gael shouts.
“He’s infected,” the agent says. “He’ll be taken to our facilities for care.”
Three guards emerge from the customs booth and push Gael and Gebre aside.
“Please don’t do this,” Gebre says. “He’s not Dead.”