CyberStorm Part 17

"Grab something from lost and found and get out there. They'll tell you what to do."

Minutes later I found myself wheeling a gurney up Sixth Avenue, dressed in a faded, cherry-red overcoat with stained, frilly white cuffs and wearing gray wool mittens. I'd left the heavy gloves Chuck had given me stuffed in the pockets of the parka I'd given to the nurse.

I was regretting my decision.

The coat was several sizes too small for me, and made for a woman, so I'd had to force the zipper to make it up past my stomach. I felt like a pink sausage.

Where the world inside the hospital had been frenetic, outside it was a surreal calm. Nearly pitch black and almost totally quiet, the street was lit only by the headlights from intermittent traffic that pa.s.sed back and forth, ferrying the sick. An ambulance swept past me, briefly illuminating the ghostly procession ahead, a ragtag parade of equipment and people staggering and shuffling through the snow.

For the first half block the cold was bearable, but after two blocks, by the time I reached the corner of Twenty-Fifth, it was biting. Walking into a steady headwind, I warmed my cheeks by pressing the scratchy wool mittens against them. I pulled one of them off to feel something lumpy on my cheek.

Is that frostbite? My feet were numb.

Hard-packed snow and ice covered the street, and I had to concentrate to keep the wheels of the gurney from getting stuck in ruts, constantly reversing course and shoving forward as it got jammed.

The woman on the gurney was barely visible, wrapped up like a mummy in layers of thin blue-and-white blankets. She was aware, awake, and looking up at me with scared eyes. I talked to her, telling her not to worry.

A bag of liquid hung from a support on the side of the bed, swinging back and forth, its tube snaking down into her covers. I tried to steady it, cursing someone for not securing it, wondering what was in it.

What will happen if it falls? Will it tear the tube from her veins?

The gurney jammed in the snow again, almost tipping over, and the woman let out a small cry. With all my strength I righted it, panting, and continued on.

Between the lights of the pa.s.sing cars and ambulances, my world became a dark coc.o.o.n of ice and cold, my heart pounding and eyes straining to see in the dim light of my headlamp. It was just me and this woman, bound together for this moment in time, a spontaneous and private struggle balanced on the edge of life and death.

The thin sliver of a crescent moon hung above me in the darkness like a scythe, and I couldn't ever remember seeing the moon in New York before.

Seven blocks became an eternity.

Did I miss the turnoff?

Struggling, I peered into the darkness. There were still people ahead of me, and then finally, up ahead two blocks, I spotted the blue and white of an NYPD van. Gripping the cold metal of the gurney, I forced us forward. While my face and hands and feet were freezing, my arms and legs were burning.

"We got it from here, buddy."

Looking up, I saw two NYPD officers waving me off and coming around to take the ends of the gurney.

I was soaked in sweat.

As she was wheeled away toward a gap in the s...o...b..nk on Thirty-First, I heard the woman say, "Thank you," but I was too tired to reply.

Doubled over and panting, I simply smiled at her and nodded.

Straightening up, I began walking back down the street into the darkness, back toward the hospital.

2:25 a.m.

"I WISH WE could offer more," said Sergeant Williams.

I shook my head. "This is great, thank you so much."

Cupping a bowl of soup in my hands, I luxuriated in its heat. My fingers tingled painfully with pins and needles as the blood returned, and my feet were still totally numb. On the way inside, I'd checked my face in the bathroom. It was sore and red, but there was no frostbite, or at least nothing like what I thought frostbite would look like.

Moving down the cafeteria line, I picked up a hard bun and a pat of b.u.t.ter. There wasn't much left except for some crackers and a few bags of chips.

The second floor of the office tower adjoining Penn Station and Madison Square Garden had been converted into an NYPD barracks, and it was packed. After I'd struggled for a few more trips back and forth, Sergeant Williams had stopped me, seeing I was about to collapse, and offered to bring me up to their mess.

n.o.body had batted an eye when I entered wearing my frilly pink coat. They were too exhausted.

Scanning the crowd, I couldn't see anyone I knew. Chuck had stayed with the girls. He wasn't much use with his broken hand. Tony, Vince, and I had walked over to the hospital, but I'd lost track of them in the confusion. Richard had conveniently disappeared from the hallway when we'd announced our intention to come and help.

Everyone had been wearing masks during the hospital evacuation, but in the cafeteria n.o.body was. Either they knew something the general population didn't, or they'd given up.

Sergeant Williams motioned to an open spot at the tables, and we wound our way through the crowd to sit down. Wedging myself between some NYPD officers, I put down my steaming bowl of soup to shake hands all around. Sergeant Williams sat across from me, pulling off his hat and scarf and tossing them atop the heap of other outdoor clothing littering the table. I added mine to the pile.

It smelled like a locker room.

"It's a G.o.dd.a.m.n mess out there," complained one of the officers, leaning down into his soup.

"What happened?" asked another.

"The Chinese is what happened," he growled back. "I hope they've friggin' leveled Beijing. I had to carry a few old slanty-eyed b.a.s.t.a.r.ds up from Presbyterian, and I swear to G.o.d I almost dropped them into the s...o...b..nk to freeze to death."

"Enough of that," said Sergeant Williams softly. "There's enough bad already going on out there without us adding to it. We don't know what happened yet, and I don't want to hear any more talk like that."

"Don't know what happened?" said the officer incredulously. "It's like we're fighting a G.o.dd.a.m.n war in our own city."

Sergeant Williams stared at the officer.

"For every person causing mischief, there's five more like Michael here"-he motioned toward me with a nod of his head-"that are risking their lives to help out."

The officer shook his head.

"Mischief? I'll give you G.o.dd.a.m.n mischief. You can all go to h.e.l.l. I've friggin' had it."

He got up angrily, grabbing his bowl of soup, and stormed off to another corner of the mess hall. The officers around him looked away, but one by one they all got up and left as well.

"You'll have to forgive Officer Romales," said Sergeant Williams. "We lost some people today in a shoot-out on Fifth. Some idiots decided to start looting the fancy shops there, a whole mob."

Leaning down, I undid the laces on my boots and loosened them, curling my toes. An intense ache had begun to burn in them.

"Take the boots off," suggested Sergeant Williams. "Warm in here, but the boots are insulated. If you keep your feet in 'em, you'll be keeping 'em cold."

He sighed and looked around.

"Bodies and blood everywhere after that firefight on Fifth, and nowhere to put 'em, no way to get there with paddy wagons or ambulances, so we had to leave them to freeze right on the street. A h.e.l.l of a thing."

Kicking my boots off, I brought one foot up onto the opposite knee and began kneading my toes.

"Sorry to hear that."

I wasn't sure what was appropriate to say, and perhaps nothing was. I left a respectful pause for silence while I switched feet and began working on the other toes.

"City morgues are full up anyway, and the hospitals are fast becoming meat lockers."

A searing pain shot through the foot I was ma.s.saging. I winced.

"What happened at Presbyterian?"

Sergeant Williams shook his head. "A gasket blew on the generator fuel pump when switching from one tank to another. Eighty big hospitals in the city, plus hundreds of clinics, are all gonna come crashing down soon. We're near three days in-even without equipment failure, none of them have reserves to last past five days on generator, and there's little refueling in sight."

He dunked his bread into the soup.

"Worst is the water. DEP shut down tunnels two and three out at Hillview Reservoir when a system malfunction said sewage had spilled over, but when they found it was just a glitch, they couldn't open the tunnels again. Pure genius. Control systems are screwed, or some such nonsense."

"Can't they do something?"

"Ninety percent of city water flows in from there. They're going to have to blow the tunnel controls, but even then, with no flowing water for a few days at these temperatures, the smaller pipes are probably frozen up already. Not long till people start hacking into the ice on the East River to drink that polluted slop. Eight million people on this island are going to die of thirst before they freeze to death."

I stopped eating my soup and put both feet back on the ground, despite the pain it sent shooting up my legs.

"So where's the cavalry?"

"FEMA?" he laughed, but then stopped himself. "They're doing their d.a.m.nedest, but there's no contingency for rescuing sixty million people. Networks are all down, and they can't even find their people or equipment. Boston is as bad as us, add a frozen storm surge when that nor'easter hit, and more of the same story in Hartford, Philly, Baltimore."

"Didn't the president order the military in?"

He laughed again. "Even Washington is up this creek, son. We haven't heard anything from there the last day or two, like they've dropped into a black hole. Starting with the bird flu scare, the entire country's been thrown into chaos. At least from what we hear, and that's d.a.m.ned little."

"Have you even seen the military?"

He nodded. "They appeared, but they have their knickers in a twist over the unidentified targets, thinking we're in some kind of new drone war and now cranked up on DEFCON 2 to protect a country that's disintegrating behind the fences. Idiots are getting set to launch a war on the other side of the world while we starve and freeze over here. n.o.body still has any idea what the h.e.l.l happened."

"But somebody's done something."

"Yeah, somebody has done something."

I looked around the crowded room. "I've got my family here. Should we get out, get to an evacuation center?"

"Evacuate to where? It's a frozen wasteland out there, and even if you had somewhere to go, how would you get there?"

He took a deep breath and reached out to hold one of my hands. It was an intimate gesture I wasn't expecting.

"Do you have somewhere safe? Somewhere warm?"

I nodded.

"Stay there then, get clean water, and keep your head down. We'll sort this out. Con Edison says they'll have power in a few days, and after that the rest will sort itself out."

He let go of my hand, leaning back to rub his eyes.

"One more thing."

I put my spoon down and waited.

"There's another storm coming, nearly as bad as the first."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

I stared at him.

In barely a whisper he added, "G.o.d help us all."

Day 6 December 28.

8:20 a.m.

THE BABY SCREAMED and screamed in my arms. I tried to hold it, but it was slippery, still in its placental sack. I was alone in the woods, my hands filthy, covered in leaves, with dirt jammed under my fingernails. I scrubbed and scrubbed my hands, trying to clean them, trying to hold onto the baby, but it slid and slipped.

My G.o.d, don't let it fall. Someone, please help me.

With a gasp, I sat bolt upright in bed. Outside was a flat, gray light. Overcast. No sound except the soft purring of the electric heater beside the bed. Lauren was sleeping with me, Luke cradled between us. He was awake, staring up at me and smiling.

"Hey, buddy," I said to him softly.

I was sweating, my heart still racing, with the vision of the baby slipping sideways in my consciousness. Leaning down, I kissed Luke on his chubby cheek, and he burbled and squeaked.

He was hungry.

Lauren shifted, and her eyes opened.

"Are you okay?" she asked, blinking and leaning up on one elbow.

She was wearing a gray cotton hoodie and bundled deep under layers of blankets. I leaned over, reaching under the covers, and she flinched ever so slightly as my cold fingers found her warm flesh. Gently, I slid my hand down to caress her belly. Maybe eleven weeks, but her tummy was still flat.

She smiled awkwardly and looked away.

"Last night," I sighed, "was horrible. I couldn't stop thinking about you."

"Because I'm horrible?"