see of its outline, it appeared to have the razor-edged fuselage and stubby graphite-composite wings of a Daimyo vacuum shuttle.
Something prickled along his spine. There would be a bigger ship up there, he knew, waiting just beyond the stratosphere The shuttle came down low over the observatory, and leveled off, circling the ruin, a matte-black scavenger. From its belly extended shafts of metallic blue light, sensitive fingers probing the body of the dead building. Jonny hunkered down behind the pile of Sony televisions, listening to the ship's engine's whine in the overheated air. It was waiting for something. A signal? he wondered.
But the man who would have signaled it was dead on his back, fifty meters away.
After more than a dozen passes, the hum of the shuttle's engines took a sudden jump in frequency, the fingers of light disappearing one by one, leaving the observatory dark. Veering off down the hill, the ship banked sharply to the left and started a rapid climb back the way it had come. Jonny crawled to the edge of the pile of televisions to watch the firing of the shuttle's engines, twin stars. A couple of hovercars detached themselves from formation over Hollywood and buzzed up the hill behind the larger ship, firing their banks of heat-seeking missiles.
The shuttle disappeared on the far side of the hills. The flash of the explosion bleached the sky bone-white before the sound hit him.
It rolled like distant thunder, over the hills and on into the city. The hovercars turned off and headed back to Hollywood, merging into the mass of lights that was Los Angeles.
Below, the city was burning. The wind had changed direction; the sand was coming down harder, but behind it was a hint of rain.
Jonny wondered if the weather patterns would ever stabilize. He removed the bottom panel from the front of the old piano and crawled inside. Something exploded on Sunset Boulevard below.
Sizzling fireworks and a choir of hologram angels, enormous lavender lizards, skulls, women's shoes, dice and playing cards rose from the flames, glowed mad and beautiful, spiraled, screamed, clawed at the buildings and finally faded into the sky.
The city burned all night.
EPILOGUE
The city was inside him, its windblown streets and alleys as much a part of him as the air he breathed, the blood in his veins.
What roots he had were sunk deep in its hard soil. It formed the walls and foundation of his soul, a thing of which he possessed little knowledge, but which he had lately begun to consider.
He would never leave the city behind.
Los Angeles lay white and still beneath the sun. The winds that had carried in the sand were now blowing smoke from the smoldering buildings out to sea, leaving the sky a nearly unblemished dome of aquamarine. In the distance, Watts and Silver Lake seemed to still be burning. However, since dawn a crystalline calmness had invaded the city. It happened as the sun rose, shimmering off the centimeters of desert sand that covered every flat surface. The light gave Los Angeles the pure, hard look of a newly minted coin or surgical instrument.
Jonny spotted the first refugees just before daybreak. A small group of them were making their way over the nearby hills, heading for the Ventura Freeway and parts north. Later, he spotted hundreds of people following the highways out of Hollywood. At first, he had wondered where they were all going, but as he asked the question, the answer seemed obvious.
Anywhere else.
The revolution was done. From what a young Zombie Analytic girl told him, the Croakers had won. In a sense. 'They're not in control of the city, but neither's the Committee, so I guess they won,' she said. 'They won or they lost in such a way that the Committee can't win; take your pick.'
By noon, the hills were full of refugees, winding in ragged lines around the observatory and the HOLLYWOOD sign, moving Jonny as he sat on the keyboard of the piano, and on over the hills. Many people were still wearing their costumes from the night before. In the bright sun, newsrag skeletons were hardly more menacing that the flat-footed Meat Boys, hookers and merchants that followed.
No more fighting, Jonny thought. Let them have it. Let them try to rule an empty city.
'What's so funny, Jonny?'
He had not realized that he was laughing out loud. Easy Money stood a few meters away within the ring of circular shrines, pale and filthy, shielding his eyes from the sun. The arm he had injured at the Forest of Incandescent Bliss was wrapped in tangled layers of dirty gauze.
'That's going to get infected,' Jonny said.
'I tanked up on ampecillin in Little Tokyo,' Easy replied. There was a subtle irregularity in skin color of the arm he was using to shield his eyes, a burning or mottling. It could be anything, Jonny thought. He looked for other signs of the virus, but under all that dirt, there was no way to be sure.
'So, like I said, 'What's so funny?' '
'Everything,' Jonny said. 'It's over, man. They killed us. We're dead and they can't hurt us anymore.'
'You know the Committee's still holding parts of the city? They've sent for the Army.'
'Let them. You can't shoot ghosts and that's all that's left down there.'
Easy Money lowered his hand and Jonny saw heavy bruising across the man's forehead where one of his horns had broken off.
'You going back?'
Jonny shook his head. 'Let the rats have it,' he said. 'You?'
'Where would I go?'
'There's lots of places.'
Easy looked over his shoulder at the smoke and the sand. 'No.'
A dozen Mexican teenagers walked by, nylon athletic bags emblazoned with colorful corporate decals and backpacks full of clothes and food hanging from their shoulders. They were singing together, an ancient melody, low and steady like a hymn, wholly unselfconscious. They were moving against the general flow of traffic, heading south and, Jonny knew, home. When they moved out of ear-shot, he found himself missing their song.
Easy was pointing at something. 'You planning to use that or what?'
Jonny looked down at his hand and found Conover's Futukoro there. He had a vague memory of having sneaked back into the observatory during the night and taking the thing, though he could not remember why. Jonny looked at Easy. 'It's gone a little beyond that, don't you think?' He shrugged. 'Besides, I miss your head and hit something important.'
Easy smiled. 'You are a classic asshole, you know that? I'd have blown you away on sight.'
'Maybe that's the difference between us. I don't have to kill you; you're doing that just fine by yourself. '
'But I won't die an asshole.'
'I don't know if either of us has much choice in that matter.'
Jonny laughed. 'You know what I can't stop thinking about? Those poor ignorant idiots on the moon. Sitting up there thinking how safe they are from this little war they've dreamed up for us, not knowing about the little green men that are coming to see them. I mean, it's enough to make you think that maybe there is a god and that maybe the fucker has a sense of humor.'
'I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, but that's okay,' said Easy. 'Seeing as how you're in such a good moodyou wouldn't happen to be holding, would you?'
'Got a lot of pain?'
'Think I cracked some ribs when I fell.'
'That's rough.' Jonny pulled one of his pockets inside out. 'I seem to be all tapped out. Easy just nodded. 'You might check Conover's place. His security's down for good and there's a room there stacked eyeball-high with Mad Love.'
