Straining my ears, I pick up subtle noises from behind the curtain. Wordless whispers. A low chattering.
“Well?” Julie snaps, growing anxious in the eerie silence. “I’ve still got nine fingers, let’s do this!”
I can see whitecaps forming on the ocean. Another gust hits the tower like a soft fist and the window nearest to me cracks. I watch the silvery lines spread, a noise like creaking bones, and I have a strange thought:
Sand castles. You’re child kings in sand castles, and you forgot about the tide.
Blue Tie emerges from the curtain and exits the room without comment. Still grinning, Yellow Tie follows him and Black Tie follows her, shoving us ahead.
“Hey!” Julie shouts. “What the hell’s going on?”
They hustle us into the elevator and we plummet. Julie looks at me with wide eyes, but all I can offer is a shrug. The pitchmen watch the darkening sky as they listen to their buzzing walkies. Their grins begin to fade.
THE CITY HAS WOKEN from its muffled daydreams. Its clouded eyes have snapped alert and nervous. Through the dark glass of the pitchmen’s SUV, I see people rushing up and down streets with boxes and backpacks, loading handcarts and even a few horses. I see Axiom troops lining people up for some kind of sorting process. Its exact nature eludes me but it results in two distinct groups: people who nod mutely and pile into vans, and people who scream and shout until the soldiers force them away. I hear occasional gunshots echoing down the avenues, but it’s hard to hear much over the howling wind.
Julie has stopped demanding answers. She watches the chaos around us with a faraway look in her eyes. “It was like this when my family left,” she murmurs. “Everyone trying to get out with whatever they could grab. Tanks in the streets, all sprayed up with war paint, every borough’s colors and logos. Staten Island against Brooklyn against Queens against the Bronx, and all of them against Manhattan. And of course the Dead that came out of every skirmish. The Dead against everyone.”
She watches a woman herding two children into a subway tunnel. I watch a man on a fire escape attempting to board up a window, fumbling with a sheet of plywood as the wind tries to snatch it from him.
“It was just people, then,” Julie says. “We thought we were running from people.”
The pitchmen park on the sidewalk and rush us into the building. They remain silent and expressionless all the way back to our jail floor, perhaps lost in reveries of their own if their strange minds have any capacity for private thoughts. I find it more likely they’re just overloaded by this sudden change of agenda. Unplugged from their flowchart, stumbling blind in the unscripted darkness.
They unlock our cuffs and nudge us into our cell without a word. Nora looks us over and lets out a relieved and slightly puzzled sigh upon finding no new mutilations. Abram glowers up at the pitchmen as Sprout sleeps against his shoulder. M slouches against the wall, snoring softly.
In here, with the only window looking out on a brick wall, it’s unclear what’s happening outside. There is howling and creaking, but the sense of panic spreading over the city is not apparent.
“Hey,” Julie says.
“Hey,” Nora says. “How’d your interview go?”
“Listen,” Julie says, rushing toward her, “things are falling apart out there, we need to—”
She stops and looks over her shoulder. The pitchmen are still waiting in the doorway. “Yes . . . ?” Julie says. “Am I supposed to tip you or something?”
They raise their walkies. I hear the faint buzz of voices, and their blank expressions snap back into grins, once more filled with certainty.
Black Tie steps into the cell and reaches for Sprout’s arm.
Abram smacks his hand away and stands up, shoves him hard enough to tip the much bigger man off balance. “That’s not happening,” he says.
“It’s for her safety,” Yellow Tie says with a disarming smile. “If she can be Oriented, she’ll be safe permanently. Isn’t that what you want?”
“She’s not Dead.”
“The Axiom Group is committed to breaking down barriers,” Yellow Tie declares, radiating pride. “As we develop techniques for Orienting a diverse range of biological states, the traditional categories of ‘Living’ and ‘Dead’ will become increasingly irrelevant until they become indistinguishable. There is a place for everyone in the new America.” She beams like a kindergarten teacher telling kids they’re special. “Even you.”
“Get out,” Abram growls, standing in front of his daughter, who is glancing around in a panic, eyes still crusted with sleep.
Yellow Tie sighs. She raises her walkie and says, “Security escort to floor twenty please.”