and started to climb. The guide cautioned her to be quiet, at least, but she doubted that stealth would make a difference. .
At the next floor, a set of double doors were off their hinges and wedged against the wall. She looked past them, down a long passageway. “Where are you? Who are you?”
“Avila.” It was very close now. “Do not be afraid.”
“In there.” Shannon pointed to a doorway fifty feet down on the left. He led the way, paused at the entrance, and asked for the lamp.
His face was pale and he looked close to a heart attack. But she had to admire him. He stuck the lamp and his head and the rifle more or less simultaneously into the room. They saw broken chairs, a collapsed desk, curtains drawn back providing a view of the city. “Show yourself,” he said.
“That’s not feasible.” The voice was crisp and cold, and seemed to come from directly overhead. Shannon whirled and dropped the lamp. The oil spilled and flared.
“What happened?” The unseen speaker sounded startled.
Shannon backed away from a burning puddle. “The lamp,” he said. “I—”
“It’s all right. The room is fireproof. Did you burn yourself?” Whoever it was should have been close enough to touch.
“No,” said Shannon, gruffly.
Where was it coming from? Avila looked wildly around and saw a door in one wall. “You’re in the closet,” she said.
Laughter rippled through the room.
Shannon yanked the door open and saw only a washstand.
“I’m pleased you came,” said the voice.
“Are you a spirit?” Avila asked.
“No. Although I can understand why you might think so.” It sounded uncertain. “What is your friend’s name?”
Shannon didn’t look as if he wanted the house demon to have that information. “Jon,” he said reluctantly.
“Good. I hadn’t heard clearly. My sensors are no longer very efficient. Please be careful if you sit down; I don’t think the furniture is safe. And the lights no longer work. Please accept my apologies.”
She had never thought to hear a celestial being beg her pardon.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
“I’m an IBM Multi-Interphase Command and Axial Unit, Self-Replicating series, MICA/SR Mark IV. Serial number you don’t care about. And I’m not really self-replicating, of course, in any meaningful way. At least, not anymore.”
Avila interpreted all this as a kind of sacred chant. “What do you want of me, Spirit?” she asked.
“Call me Mike.”
The oil continued to burn. Fire was a fearsome thing to Illyrians, whose buildings were usually constructed of wood. “You’re sure it won’t spread? Mike?”
“Nothing in this room can bum. Except people.”
The room had two windows, both intact. She walked to one and looked out. Across a narrow channel, a gray tower of impossible dimensions soared toward the moon. It had parapets and cornices, flush windows and chamfered corners, and rose in a series of ziggurat-style step-backs.
“You say you’re not a spirit. Why can’t we see you? Where are you?”
“It’s difficult to explain. Do you have knowledge of computers?”
“What’s a computer?”
The voice—Mike—laughed. He sounded amiable enough. “Avila, by what means did you come here?”
“I don’t know. We traveled in a conveyance that rode in the air.”
“Were there several coaches?”
“Yes.”
“The maglev. Good. Two of them are still running. I’m quite proud of that. Perhaps this might go best if you thought of me as Union Station.”
“Union Station?”
“Yes. That is where you are. You know that, right? And I am Union Station.”
“You’re the building?”
“In a manner of speaking. You might say I’m its soul. I am that which makes it work. Those few parts that do still work, that is.”
“Then you are a spirit.”
No answer. Avila could almost imagine her unseen host shrugging its shoulders. “Mike,” she asked “how do you come to be here? Are you condemned to inhabit this place?”
” Yes,” he said. “/ suppose you could put it that way.”
“How did it happen?”
“I was installed.”
“Installed?” growled Shannon.
Avila could make no sense of it and was having a hard time formulating the questions she wanted to ask. “You call this place a station. But it has the appearance of a temple. Was it a temple?”
“To my knowledge, it has always been a station. First for rail, later for maglev.”
“It’s abandoned,” she said. “It appears to have been abandoned a long time.”
“No Doubt.”
There was something in the voice that withered her soul. “How long have you been here?”
“I’m not sure. A long time.”
“How long?”
“My clocks don ‘I work. But I was here when the station was in use.”
“In use? You mean, by the Roadmakers?”
“Who arc the Roadmakers?”
“The people who built this station.”
“1 never heard that term.”
“Never mind,” she said. “But you were here when the Plague happened? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I was here when the trains came in empty.”
“When was that?”
“Monday, April 10. 2079. ” The date meant nothing to Avila.
“Even the Union Station workers didn’t come in. At the end of the week. I was directed to shut down the trains.”
The wind blew against the windows.
“Are you saying there was a plague?”
“Yes.”
“I always wondered what happened.” Avila glanced at Shannon. “You didn’t know? How could you not know?”
“No one ever came and told me.” It was silent for a time. “But that explains why they left. Why they never came back.”
Avila didn’t want to ask the next question. “Are you saying you’ve been alone here all this time?”
“There have been no people. But it has not been an entirely negative experience. I was able to devote myself completely to more constructive pursuits than running trains. There was much time for uninterrupted speculation. And I was able to form closer ties with my siblings.”
“Siblings? You mean others like yourself?”
“Yes.”
The light from the burning oil was growing weak. “Are they still here somewhere?” Her voice was almost a whisper.
“I don’t know. It’s been a long time.” There was a wistfulness in the lone, a sadness that thickened the air.
