sudden doom, its inhabitants looking up to see this immense arm of God swinging down on them like the mighty bludgeon of the angel of death.
And still the tower fell.
Its length splashed into the Pacific Ocean with a roar that broke eardrums and ruptured the innards of men, beasts, birds, and fish. Across the coastal shelf it plunged and out beyond into the abyssal depths. Whales migrating hundreds of kilometers out to sea were pulped to jelly by the shock wave that raced through the water. The tsunami it raised washed away shoreline settlements up and down the coast and rushed across the Pacific, flooding the Galapagos Islands, already half-drowned by the greenhouse warming. The Pacific coast of Central America was devastated. Hawaii and Japan were struck before their warning systems could get people to move inland. Samoa and Tahiti were hit by a wall of water nearly fifteen meters high that tore away villages and whole cities. People in Los Angeles and Sydney heard the mighty thunderclap and wondered if it was a sonic boom.
And still the tower fell, splashing all the way across the Pacific, groaning as part of its globe-girdling length sank slowly into the dark abyssal depths. When it hit the spiny tree-covered mountain backbone of Borneo it snapped in two, one part sliding down the rugged slopes, tearing away forests and villages and plantations as it slithered snake-like across the island.
The other part plunged across Sumatra and into the Indian Ocean, narrowly missing the long green finger of Malaysia but sending a tsunami washing across the drowned ruins of Singapore. Along the breadth of equatorial Africa it fell, smashing across Kenya, ploughed into the northern reaches of Lake Victoria, drowning the city of Kampala with a tidal wave, and continued westward, crushing cities and forests alike, igniting mammoth forest fires, driving vast herds of animals into panicked, screaming stampedes. Its upper end, still smoking from the titanic electrical discharge that had severed it, plunged hissing into the Atlantic, sinking deep down into the jagged rift where hot magma from the Earth’s core embraced the man-made structure that had, mere minutes earlier, stood among the stars.
Across the world the once-proud skytower lay amidst a swath of death and desolation and smoking ruin, crushing the life from people, animals, plants, crushing human ambition, human dreams, crushing hope itself.
Lying flat on the tiles of the airport men’s room, Bracknell felt the floor jump as a roll of thunder boomed over them, so loud that his ears rang. Even so, he heard screams and terrified cries.
“Are you all right?” he asked Lara, his voice sounding strange, muffled, inside his head.
She nodded weakly. He saw that her nose was bleeding slightly. Bracknell climbed slowly to his feet. The old man was still lying on the floor, facedown. Bracknell called to him, then nudged his shoulder. The man did not move. Rolling him over, Bracknell saw his soft brown eyes staring out sightlessly.
“He’s dead,” Lara said. Bracknell could barely hear her over the buzzing in his head.
Feeling stunned, thick-witted, Bracknell gazed around the windowless men’s room. One of the tiled walls had cracked. Or had it been that way when they had rushed in here?
“Dead?” he echoed numbly.
“A heart attack, maybe,” Lara said. She clung close to Bracknell. He could feel her trembling.
“He’s lucky,” said Bracknell.
THE RUINS
It took three days before they arrested Bracknell. He had made his way back to the shattered ruins of the Sky City, fighting through the panicked crowd at the airport, holding Lara close to him. The vast parking lot outside the airport seemed undamaged, except for the gritty dust that covered everything and crunched under their feet as they walked, tottering, for what seemed like hours until they found the minivan sitting there where they’d left it. Other people were milling around the parking lot, looking dazed, shocked.
A pall of smoke was rising from the city. Soon enough the looting would begin, Bracknell realized. For the moment they’re too stunned to do much of anything, but that’ll pass and they’ll start looting and stealing. And raping.
The minivan looked as if it had gone a thousand klicks without being washed. Bracknell helped Lara into the right-hand seat, then went around and got in himself. The car started smoothly enough. He used the windshield wipers to clear away enough of the dust so he could see to drive, then started slowly out toward the road that led back up into the hills. A few people waved pathetically to him, seeking a ride. To where? Bracknell asked himself silently as he drove past them, accelerating now. A couple of young men trotted toward the minivan and he pushed the accelerator harder. The toll gate at the exit was unoccupied, its arm raised, so he drove right through. In the rear mirror he saw a uniformed guard or policeman or something waving angrily at him. He drove on.
When they finally reached Ciudad de Cielo, they saw that most of it was flattened. Buildings were crushed beneath the skytower’s fallen bulk or blown flat by the shock wave of its collapse. Trucks overturned, lampposts bent and twisted. Dust hung in the air and the stench of death was everywhere, inescapable.
For three days Bracknell and Lara did nothing but dig bodies out of the collapsed buildings of the base city. The tower lay across the ruins like an immense black worm, dead and still, strangely warm to the touch. It had ripped out of all but one of its base tethers. In a distant corner of his mind Bracknell thought that they had designed the tethers pretty well to stand up even partially to the stress.
He worked blindly, numbly, side by side with the few surviving technicians, clerks, maintenance people, cooks, and others who had once been a proud team of builders. Lara worked alongside him, never complaining, like Bracknell and all the others too tired and shocked and disheartened to do much of anything except scrabble in the debris, eat whatever meager rations they could find, and sleep when they were too tired to stand any longer. Grimy, her face smeared with soot, her fingers bloody from digging, her clothes sodden with perspiration, Lara still worked doggedly at rescuing the few who were still alive and dragging out the mangled bodies of the dead.
The third night they saw torches lining the road from Quito, heading toward them.
“Volunteers?” Lara asked, her voice ragged with exhaustion.
“More likely a lynch mob,” said Bracknell, getting up from the rubble he’d been digging in.
“Can you blame them?” said Danvers who was working beside them. “They’re coming to kill everyone here.”
“No,” Bracknell replied, standing up straighter. “It’s me they want. I’m the one responsible for this.”
Lara, her weariness suddenly forgotten, turned her smudged face to Danvers. “You’re a man of god! Do something! Talk to them! Stop them!”
Danvers looked terrified. “Me?”
“There’s no one else,” Lara insisted.
“I’ll go,” Bracknell said grimly. “I’m the one they want.”
“I’ll… I’ll go with you,” Danvers stammered.
“You stay here,” Bracknell said to Lara.
“The hell I will!”
“This is going to be ugly.”
“I’m going where you go, Mance.”
The three of them walked—tottered, really—down the rubble-strewn street to the main road, where the torch-waving mob was marching toward them. Farther down the road, Bracknell could see the headlights of approaching trucks.
The crowd was mainly young men, all of them looking tired and grimy, clothes torn, faces blackened with soot and dirt. They carried shovels, picks, planks of wood. Christ, they look like us, Bracknell said to himself. They’ve been digging for survivors, too.
Danvers fished a small silver crucifix out of his pocket and held it up. In the flickering torchlight it gleamed fitfully. The mob stopped uncertainly.
“My sons,” he began.
One of the men, taller than the others, his eyes glittering with anger and hatred, spat out a string of rapid Spanish. Bracknell caught his drift: We want the men who killed our families. We want justice.
Danvers raised his voice, “Do any of you speak English?”
“We want justice!” a voice yelled from the crowd.
