Bad Glass Part 4

I didn't hear her footsteps carry her back through the house. I didn't hear the stairs creak as she climbed up to the second floor.

I was high. I was high and still half asleep, and I wasn't sure what I'd seen. Maybe just some dogs.

But what did Amanda see? I wondered, remembering that breathy, hopeful whisper.

I should have had my camera, I chided myself. It was the second straight time I'd been caught empty-handed.

At this rate, I'd lose my sanity before I ever managed to get a useful shot.

Video clip. September 7, 11:35 A.M. Press conference:

There's banner text running across the bottom of the screen, recounting headlines from around the world. In the bottom left-hand corner, an artful blur obscures the cable news channel's logo-it's a minor edit, somebody trying to avoid litigation, but it looks like a tiny thundercloud or a fogged and smudged piece of gla.s.s. The date and time are printed in the upper right-hand corner: September 7, 11:35 A.M. PDT.

The video starts in midsentence-a man at a lectern, talking over a gaggle of shouted questions. He is standing in front of a pale blue background, and the Spokane city seal hangs on a flag behind his head. The man's conservative blue suit is sharply pressed, and his gray-white hair sweeps back from his forehead in a perfect, unmoving wave. There is a pinched look on his face. He is starting to perspire. The words MAYOR JEFFREY SLOc.u.m are printed above the banner at the bottom of the screen.

MAYOR JEFFREY SLOc.u.m: ... be a.s.sured we are investigating every violent incident. I am in constant contact with our elected officials at all levels of government-including the president of the United States-and military intervention will only be considered as-

VOICE FROM OFFSCREEN: (Unintelligible) ... reports of hallucinations and possible terrorist attacks?

MAYOR JEFFREY SLOc.u.m: We are certainly investigating all possibilities at this time, but it's important for everybody out there-both inside the city and all across America-to know that all of our initial tests have turned up negative. And these tests have been quite extensive ... and, we've ... uh, we've seen no signs of chemical or biological foul play-

A VOICE BREAKS THROUGH THE GAGGLE OF QUESTIONS: (Unintelligible) ... water?

MAYOR JEFFREY SLOc.u.m: As I said, we've seen no signs of that. We're still checking the water and air, but at this point, those don't seem to be ... uhm, credible vectors. (Uncertain, the mayor glances to his right, offscreen.)

A SUDDEN, LOUD VOICE: How many dead, Mayor?

MAYOR JEFFREY SLOc.u.m: At this time, we don't have a firm number to give you. We'll be releasing those numbers when the time is right.

THE SAME LOUD VOICE: Have you finished counting?

MAYOR JEFFREY SLOc.u.m: Now that ... I do not appreciate the tone of your question! This city's local government is doing extremely well given these trying circ.u.mstances-with all you jackals, all the national media, watching and salivating. Let me tell you ... things are starting to fall into place, and normalcy is being-

Without warning, the mayor disappears.

In one frame, he is standing at attention behind the lectern, hammering his finger down to make a point. In the next, he is gone. There is no break in the tape, no sign of a splice; there is no hitch of digital editing. Just, suddenly, a vacant lectern set in the middle of the screen, the words MAYOR JEFFREY SLOc.u.m still superimposed beneath.

Now, where the man had been, there is nothing but pale blue background. And the city seal, swaying slightly in the air-conditioned breeze.

The mayor's disappearance is greeted with a sudden silence. Then the entire room reacts. Some of the handheld microphones withdraw in surprise, and others suddenly jerk forward. Somebody b.u.mps the camera, and the image shakes for a moment. After a couple of seconds, one of the mayor's staff moves slowly across the stage, glancing back offscreen every couple of steps. Stricken, the woman looks back and forth, then down, beneath the lectern. Finding nothing, she turns back and shakes her head, her eyes wide.

The video ends.

I heard them moving about the house while I dozed. Morning sounds. Footsteps and creaking bedsprings. Quiet voices and running water. Doors opening and falling shut. The smell of cooking tickled at my nose, but my sore muscles and foggy head kept me under the quilt. Finally, a beam of sunlight found the sofa, shining orange-red through my eyelids, and I managed to pull myself awake.

By then, the house was once again quiet. The voices were gone, and there was no sign of movement. Maybe they all packed up and left, I thought. Or maybe, in the early-morning hours, I'd managed to dream them all away.

Still half-asleep, I got up off the sofa and went looking for signs of life.

I found Charlie in the kitchen, sitting at a table in the breakfast nook. The room looked different in the morning light: the sun poured in through the open curtains, bathing everything in a blindingly bright haze. Charlie was tapping away at a tiny notebook computer. When I stepped through the door, he cast a quick glance up, then went right back to work.

"Do you have a Gmail account?" he asked, still typing away.

"Gmail?" I grunted, wondering if I'd stumbled into the middle of someone else's conversation. I rubbed at my sticky, sleep-blurred eyes. "You can't possibly have Internet access here-no power, no landlines, no cell signal. The military's got that all wrapped up tight. Right? Communication blackout ... all that happy s.h.i.t."

"I cobbled something together," he said with a sly smile. He spun the computer around and showed me the program on its screen. It looked like a simple email program. There was a tab at the top with my name on it (next to separate tabs for Charlie, Taylor, and everyone else), and then, down below, there was s.p.a.ce for account information, an address line, a subject line, and a large text field for the body of a message. "If you fill in your stuff, we can smuggle it out. It'll also capture your incoming mail."

I stared at the computer for a moment, then, suddenly struck by what I was seeing, spun it back around and checked its rear panel. "The battery ... it's charged? Where are you getting the power?"

"We've got a source." Again he flashed that sly smile.

My shoulders slumped, and I let out a disappointed groan. I'd spent over a hundred dollars on an external grip for my camera-one that took disposable batteries in lieu of rechargeable power-and I'd stocked up on a s.h.i.tload of AAs. Not to mention a second battery for my laptop.

I turned the computer back around and stared at the mail program for nearly a minute. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, tense, itching to write. But who could I contact? Who would understand? My friends in California? My father? Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely, I thought. At this point, there probably wasn't a soul in the world who had even noticed that I was gone.

As I was thinking, Taylor stormed into the house. She moved in a loud rush, crashing from the front door, through the hallway, into the kitchen. She saw me at Charlie's computer and let out a deep cluck. "No time for that," she said. "No time. I told Danny I'd be there at noon." Charlie pulled the computer back across the table and resumed typing, faster now, trying to get something finished.

"Next time, Dean," Taylor said. "Next batch." She pointed toward my bags in the living room. "Now, get dressed and ready to go. You've got a lot to see here, and I figure we should start at the top. Which means moving ... fast!"

I'd slept in my jeans and a sweatshirt, so getting dressed just meant swapping my shirt for a fresh one and unrolling a new pair of socks. Sabine had left my camera on the floor next to my bags. I slipped it into my backpack and slung the bag over my shoulder.

"You can't take that," Taylor said, nodding toward my pack as I came back into the kitchen. "Leave it with Charlie. He'll keep it safe."

I shook my head. "No f.u.c.king way! I came here to take pictures, and I've missed enough already."

"That's not the way it works, Dean. Unless you want it confiscated, you leave your camera here."

I studied her for a moment. There was absolutely no give in her eyes. Reluctantly, I set the backpack down on the table. I dug out a PowerBar, then pushed the bag toward Charlie. "I can take some f.u.c.king food, right?" I growled, showing her the foil-wrapped energy bar. "Or do you want to tell me how to eat, too?"

"It's not like that," Taylor said, a pinched, hard look on her face. "I'm not on some power trip here. It's just the reality of the situation."

Charlie finished typing on his notebook. He pulled a thumb-size RAM drive from the USB port and handed it to Taylor. She gave him a satisfied nod, then turned back my way. "You'll see," she said. "It'll be worth it. I promise."

I was in a funk all the way across the river. The morning sun had burned away the dark October clouds, transforming the city into someplace new; it was no longer the gray, oppressive maze I'd run through just the day before. The streets seemed wider somehow, the towers overhead not quite so tall. And everything had been washed clean by the torrential rain, wisps of steam curling up wherever the sun touched the damp concrete. Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy this new, sparkling city. I felt naked without my backpack, without my camera.

I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. Empty, my fingers felt awkward, useless.

Taylor gave me time to sulk. She stayed silent as she led me south, walking a couple of steps ahead but glancing back every now and then to check my mood. After a while, those glances started to weigh on me. I felt stupid. Here I was, pouting like some petulant child.

"Where are we going?" I finally asked, trying to regain some dignity.

"The heart of downtown," she said. "The best place to start."

After crossing the bridge, she took me west on Sprague. The street here was deserted, but I could hear voices and laughter to the south.

"Mama Ca.s.s's place," Taylor said, nodding in that direction. "It's right down there. She gets her food from the outside. Always has fresh-brewed coffee. If you ever need company, day or night, that's where you want to go."

I wasn't certain about my bearings, but I knew that the hotel from yesterday had to be around here someplace. And the man, I thought, the man in the ceiling, deformed, not even human, but still reaching out. Perhaps it was a block farther south. I stuck close to Taylor.

As we pa.s.sed, an abandoned building on the north side of the street caught my eye. There were words spray painted across its face, starting way up on the fourth floor. The words stretched left to right in crooked rows, stacked one on top of the other. Each letter was about four feet tall, transcribed freehand in gentle, feminine arcs. The paint was electric blue, laid out in thick, double-wide lines. It was a poem. Or as close to poetry as graffiti could get.

It read: inside turned out, no longer hidden and the weight of the world and the price of this vision and the height we will fall and we WILL f a l l The last word-fall-was inscribed in the narrow s.p.a.ce between a window and the edge of the building, plummeting all the way to the ground. The word will in the final line was traced over with red paint, making it stand out like an exit sign in a dark theater.

"Who did this?" I asked, halting to study the giant words.

Taylor shook her head. "I don't really know. The Artist. The Poet ... You'll find stuff like this all over town. Poems, slogans. All in the same handwriting. There's a giant 'f.u.c.k You' facing I-90." She took a step back, as if trying to pull the whole building into frame. "This one's new, though. It wasn't here last week."

Poetry. The word suddenly clicked inside my head. "Sabine?" I asked. "She could have done this. She said she writes poems."

Taylor shook her head. "I don't think so. All of Sabine's poems are about her v.a.g.i.n.a." She smiled at the surprised look on my face, then gestured back toward the building. "Besides, that girl's obsessed with the Poet. She wants to find whoever's doing this ... wants to collaborate." She was quiet for a moment, and when she continued, there was a hint of disdain in her voice. "You know, sometimes I wonder if this is all just some big f.u.c.ked-up art project for her, for Sabine. This whole f.u.c.king thing. Nothing but background color and clever commentary. A stage on which she can play. Nothing serious, no. Nothing deadly."

I turned and studied Taylor's profile, watching as her eyes scanned the poem. "And me?" I asked. "What about me and my photography?"

"You're new here," Taylor said. "You'll learn. Sabine, on the other hand ... she should know better by now."

She glanced down at her watch and nodded westward. "Now, get your a.s.s in gear. We've got an appointment to keep."

The courthouse was a huge, blocky building at the corner of Lincoln and Sprague. It looked like a giant four-sided cheese grater, with hundreds of small windows recessed in a tight concrete grid. The newspaper building stood across from its entrance, and a cobblestone courtyard occupied the s.p.a.ce between the two buildings. Once a well-manicured stretch of land, the courtyard had fallen into disrepair, now cordoned off on both ends of the block and cluttered with dead, skeletal trees. A fountain stood near the courthouse's entrance, but without water, it was nothing but a twelve-foot bowl br.i.m.m.i.n.g with trash and leaves. There were soldiers posted at the courthouse's front door.

Taylor led me down the street at the building's side, away from the entrance. She stopped halfway down the block and abruptly turned toward the building. It was ten stories of industrial concrete, a drab, oppressive cliff face looming above us. There was a broken window three floors up, a neat black hole punched through the building's face. Taylor glanced both ways-checking for witnesses, I supposed-then, in a quick, discreet motion, grabbed something from her pocket and lobbed it up through that gaping wound. As it sailed through the air, I recognized it as Charlie's USB drive.

Why? I wanted to ask, but she started away before I could open my mouth.

I followed her back to the front of the building, tagging along like a puppy dog as she headed straight for the main entrance. The guards smiled as they saw her approach. They must not have felt threatened. They didn't even touch the rifles slung across their shoulders.

"It's good to see you, Taylor," one of the men said, greeting her with genuine warmth. "And your timing's spot-on, as usual. The captain just left."

"Awww, that's a shame," she said, a campy, theatrical quality entering her voice. "And here I thought to bring him a gift!" She started digging through her pockets, searching for something, then stopped with her hand buried deep in her pants. "Ah, here it is!" she said, pulling her hand out and displaying a raised middle finger.

"Think you can give him that for me, Johnny?" she asked, turning to the second soldier.