street, cleared the roof of the garage next door, and then a crosswind plucked it from its path and brought it sailing back toward the Future Building, where it came twisting and bobbing up the long row of balconies, a quickly expanding red sphere. Laura could see the girl yanking at her mother's arm, trying to pull her toward the balloon, but it was already far out of reach.
'I think that thing's going to pass right by us,' Luka said, and sure enough, the balloon had hit some still corridor of air that ran up the side of the building. 'You know,' he said, 'I think I might be able to catch it.'
He tilted out over the ledge of the balcony, and Laura seized her breath. When the balloon soared past, he looped his hand out in one swift gesture, like a bear snatching at a salmon. Suddenly he was holding it by the string.
Laura looked at the balloon, and then at him, and then back at the balloon. 'I can't believe you did that,' she said. 'Five dollars to the man with the golden hand.'
He looked down into the courtyard. 'They're still down there. Come on.' He led Laura to the elevator and pressed the call button. The compartment must have been lingering just a floor or two away, because the bell sounded almost immediately. The doors slid open and then closed with a diminishing whispering noise, and as they dropped toward the lobby, Luka held the CLOSE DOORS button down with his finger. The balloon hovered at the ceiling. When the elevator reached the ground floor, he said, 'Hurry,' and took her by the hand. They rushed past the doorman into the courtyard.
The child and her mother were gone. A man was feeding cheese curls to his dog, which was eating them fastidiously, like someone trying to split a seed open between his front teeth. A group of teenagers was listening to music on a pocket radio.
'They were headed down Thirty-second,' Luka said. 'Quick. This way.' Laura followed him down the steps that led past the garage, weaving through a cluster of old men who were talking about the races, and then sprinted beneath a line of trees and scaffolding. At the end of the block, they saw a woman waiting with her daughter at the crosswalk.
Luka caught up to them just as the light was changing.
'Excuse me,' he said to the girl. He was out of breath from running, and he gasped a few times, his mouth opening and closing like a bellows.
It was just long enough for the girl to notice the balloon and say, 'That's mine!' She turned to her mother. 'I told you so! A man catched it on his porch. I told you so!'
''Caught,'' her mother corrected her. And then the mother accepted the balloon from Luka and said, 'Thank you. Thank you very much.'
She stooped over and wrapped the white string around her daughter's wrist, making a knot. 'I'm telling you, it would have been nothing but balloons from her for the next two weeks. What do you say to the nice man, Sarah?'
'Is this the first balloon you caught?' the girl said. 'What's your job? Is this what you do?'
'Say thank you, Sarah.'
'Thank you.'
The crosswalk signal, which had been green, began blinking on and off. 'Shoot,' the woman said. 'Look, we're really in a hurry, mister. Thank you again. I'm sorry.'
'Thank you, Balloon Man,' the girl said, and Laura was sure that's how the girl would think of him from now on, what she would call him whenever she told the story: Balloon Man. She and Luka watched the two of them dash across the street as the light changed, the bumpers of half a dozen cars nosing at the backs of their legs. They walked past a bookstore and an old movie theater, the girl's outfit, the same yellow-green as a firefly's bulb, flashing between the bodies of the other pedestrians, and they vanished into the crowd.
And then Luka said something that Laura knew she would never forget.
'You know, that may be the best thing I've ever done with my life,' he said.
What was the best thing she had ever done with her life? she wondered now, as she listened to the wind moaning outside the station. She had never founded a charity or raised a family. She had never saved another person's life. Hell, she had never even saved another person's balloon.
The best thing she had ever done with her life was probably some small, half-conscious act of kindness she had long since forgotten.
'Laura Byrd Gives Wildflowers to Her Mother and Father.'
Or, 'Laura Byrd Offers Token to Man at Subway Terminal, Promptly Forgets.'
Or, 'Laura Byrd Flashes Headlights, Warns Other Drivers of Speed Trap.'
When she had finished reading the article, she set the paper aside and put her head in her hands, closing her eyes and massaging her temples. If the paper was correct, a mutagenic virus had begun spreading through North America at the end of January, right around the time she, Puckett, and Joyce had fallen out of communication with the people at Coca-Cola. The virus was by all accounts lethal and had migrated by air and water from Asia and Western Europe. The nations of South America had attempted to establish a cordon to prevent its further spread, but pockets of infection had already been discovered in Brazil, Ecuador, and Argentina.
The paper referred to the virus as 'the epidemic,' but said that it was known in popular discourse as The Blinks, because the first sign of exposure was often a redness in the eyes that caused an uncontrollable blinking response. Whether the virus was manufactured or the result of natural mutation had yet to be determined. But it was widely suspected to be manufactured.
Laura spent the next few hours hunched over the radio transceiver, adjusting the dial by the tiniest of increments, pausing at every frequency to listen for an intelligible signal. For a long time she heard nothing but white noise. Then, late in the afternoon, when she switched to the highest band setting, she picked up a voice speaking in a tongue she didn't understand – a grinding, popping language filled with unexpected rushes and halts.
She gave a start. There was somebody out there.
She fed the signal through the computer's translation program. The message was being broadcast in Malay. She listened to the interpretation:… no survivors, repeat, no survivors. I can feel the sickness coming over me. I know I do not have long. I can only hope that this recording will continue to run as long as the power holds out. I love you, Piah. You will see me again soon, my dear. There was a clicking sound, followed by a high-pitched whir of noise, and then the voice began again. This is a message to anyone who is listening. Stay away from the city, repeat, stay away from the city. There are no survivors, repeat, no survivors. lean feel the sickness coming over me…
She listened to the message a dozen times before she switched the transceiver off.
That poor man, she thought. That poor man and his poor lover.
And then, though she tried her hardest to avoid the thought, Poor me.
Outside, the night was deepening. There were still a few minutes of hazy light in the middle of the day, a sort of false dawn that seemed to seep directly into the atmosphere. The sun no longer appeared on the horizon, though, and the light quickly faded back into itself. Laura walked out into the snow and took a few deep gulps of air.
The sky was all moon and stars now. She found herself wondering if she was the last person alive. It was something she had speculated about before – something everyone who had ever read a science fiction novel had probably speculated about. But in her case, she thought, it just might be true. Maybe the reason she hadn't been able to reach anyone on the radio, telephone, or computer was because there was no one left to reach. For the first time, it occurred to her that she might truly be completely alone. She couldn't quite believe it, though.
She had already explored the station pretty exhaustively, but she decided to commence the search again from scratch, ransacking the cabinets and lockers, overturning mattresses and cushions, and peering beneath the heavy furniture with a flashlight. She had to find out exactly what had happened to the emperor penguin party. She had to know what all those X's meant.
The work was exhausting, but it paid off. Late that night, about to fall asleep from fatigue, she discovered a loose panel behind one of the beds. She popped it out of its mounting to look inside. In the crevice between the wall and the insulation, she found a small, hand-worn book. It was bound in leather. There were black patches
