first, since he needed to give the others a chance to manually adjust to his speed. Soon, however, they were all moving across the sky like emerald streaks of lightning, heading home.
6
Earth—and therefore life as well—is a fluke. The thought had never struck James with as much intensity as when the five little points of light approached Earth’s stratosphere. The Earth seemed to emanate life; its oceans gleamed in the sunlight, and its atmosphere bathed the surface in a beautiful blue glow. Not hellish like Venus, not red and frozen like Mars had previously been, but peaceful and perfect. Working on terraforming for his entire adult life had taught James just how impossible the odds were of a life-supporting planet forming on its own. If the continents hadn’t emerged out of the water, if the planet’s rotation hadn’t been just right, if it hadn’t been just the right distance from just the right kind of sun, none of it would exist. Some days, days like today, James was amazed at the beauty.
If only it was like that every day.
James had to guess the location of Vancouver. Judging by the position of the Earth and the time of day, he was able to put them over the general vicinity of his hometown. Much of the northern west coast of North America was covered by clouds, but they seemed light and peaceful compared to the clouds on Venus.
He and the others entered the clouds in a free fall. Now he would find out how strong he was at navigating manually—would he emerge over Vancouver, or would he have led them too far south towards Seattle, maybe too far to the west over Vancouver Island, maybe too far east into some forest in the middle of nowhere?
When the clouds began to break, he caught a glimpse of something strange. It was only a momentary glimpse, and he told himself it couldn’t be right. It had looked like flames. He kept dropping. A moment or two later, the clouds abated completely, and he saw where he was: over the east side of Vancouver, facing south. His mouth opened, and his eyes widened as he looked at his city. It was on fire.
He looked to his left and watched as the nearby city of Surrey burned, then turned to his right and saw the downtown core, also aflame. He spun and looked toward the North Shore Mountains, toward
The rest of the crew were next to him now. They had all disengaged their magnetic fields and were trying to talk to him. He disengaged his own field so he could listen.
“…have been an earthquake!” Thel was finishing exclaiming.
“I have to get home!” James said.
“We’ll follow you!” Old-timer replied.
James reengaged his magnetic field and streaked toward his house. He exhaled in relief when he saw that it was not on fire. In fact, his house and all those in his neighborhood seemed to be structurally unaffected by the earthquake.
“Thank God.”
He landed on his front lawn, disengaged his magnetic field, and ran toward the front door. In his panic, he forgot that his mind’s eye was not functioning, and he thumped awkwardly against his front door. “Jesus!” he shouted. He took a step back and, this time intentionally, put his shoulder into the door. It wouldn’t give; it was reinforced steel, and the hinges were surprisingly strong. He reengaged his magnetic field and flew into the door—it came apart like butter.
Thel and the others set down on James’s lawn just as he made his way inside.
“God. Lousy day for luck,” Rich said, his voice full of sympathy. “What is this now? Geology screwing us?”
Thel stepped over the remnants of the front door and entered the house. The ground floor seemed completely undisturbed. Then she and the others were startled by James’s cry from above.
Thel shot upward toward the bedroom entrance. James was stumbling backward, nearly stepping off the edge of his doorway, but Thel was there to stop him.
“What is it?” she asked.
He turned to her with his face white and his eyes wide, as if he’d seen hell. “Don’t go in there, Thel,” he replied.
“What happened?” She looked past his shoulder and screamed.
Old-timer had just reached the doorway as James pulled her out of the room with him and set her down on the ground floor.
“Dear God,” Old-timer uttered as he, Rich, and Djanet peered inside the room.
There wasn’t anyone in there—at least not anyone recognizable. What appeared to be the organic material that once constituted a human being was splashed all over the room. It looked as though someone had taken several buckets of blood and hair and used them to paint the bed, carpet, and walls. A fetid odor of blood hung in the air. It briefly crossed Old-timer’s mind that he was breathing the remnants of Katherine Keats. Suddenly nauseated, he covered his mouth and nose and turned away.
James was now on his knees, having removed his helmet, trying to get his breath. Thel held him, but she was as horrified as he.
“What the hell happened?” Old-timer asked to no one in particular.
James struggled to speak as he continued to gasp for air. “The nans. The nans are the only thing that could have…liquefied a person like that. You need to get to your homes. This wasn’t an earthquake. You need to get to your homes and see if this…if this hell is happening everywhere.”
“Oh my God,” said Djanet, as she began to think of her family in Trinidad.
“Are you saying you think
James looked up at him, desperation in his eyes. “I didn’t see anyone out there. I didn’t see a single person other than us.”
“But how do we find our way home without the Net?” Old-timer asked. “It could take hours.”
James sat and pondered this for a moment. “Maps,” he said, still gasping. “Follow me.”
7
James and his four companions lifted off from his front lawn and ignited their magnetic fields. They raced toward the downtown core of the city, a sickening desperation seeping into each of their hearts as they began to accept that what they were dealing with was not just some scary virtual experience enjoyed late at night with a friend—this was real.
As the group neared their destination, they slowed their approach, hovering just above the rooftops. There were no people. Usually, downtown flight was controlled by the A.I. One couldn’t enter downtown airspace without inputting their destination into their mind’s eye and giving over control of their flight to the A.I.’s highly organized transportation system. It was the only way to avoid thousands of collisions as millions of people buzzed around the downtown area every day, running errands, participating in meetings, and generally partaking in the great business of the hive. Destinations had to be input like phone numbers, and then the inputee would be guided like a phone signal to wherever he or she desired to go. Tens of thousands of people buzzed around the core every hour of every day. And yet today, there was no one. The sky was empty. James could not help thinking that it was as beautiful as it was horrific.
When James looked down to the street, he saw where all those Icaruses had gone.
Red splashes stained the streets as far as the eye could see. Small, robotic street-cleaners were working furiously to wash and scrub the streets clean. It wasn’t litter, coffee or latte spills that the robots were trying to wipe away; it was the inhabitants of the city.
