“If it’s any consolation,” said Vom, “it was a bit watery.”
West took the burger. “Thanks, Number Five.”
He started to close the door, but Diana asked, “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“I can’t get you out of the apartment,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to ask that. I kind of assumed it. No, I wanted to know about Chuck.”
“Who?”
“The guy in Apartment Two. The one with the… dog.”
“Number Two? What about him?”
“What’s his deal?”
“He lives in Apartment Two.”
He unwrapped the burger, took a bite. She waited for him to finish chewing, but he was a painfully slow chewer. And an even slower swallower. He scratched his beard. His furry eyebrows arched.
“S’good.”
“You don’t find there’s too much mayo?” asked Vom. “I thought they overdid the mayo.”
“Is that why you only ate five on the ride here?” asked Smorgaz.
“Guys, could you do me a favor and go back to the apartment?”
Grumbling, the monsters walked away.
“Chuck… Number Two, how dangerous is that dog?” she asked.
West took another bite, chewed, and swallowed in the time it would take a normal person to eat the whole burger.
She sighed.
“I’m just worried about Chuck.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Chuck. Number Two.”
“Uh-hum,” said West neutrally.
“Is there some way to make friends with it?” she asked. “The dog outside of Apartment Two? If I gave it a burger, would it let Chuck out more often?”
“Hmm?”
“Number Two, would the dog let him out more often if he fed it something?”
West’s already sallow flesh paled. “Don’t feed it. Whatever you do, Number Five, don’t do that.”
“Because…?”
“Because it would be a bad, bad thing to do.”
“Bad how?”
West’s brow wrinkled. “You ask a lot of questions, Number Five.”
“How am I supposed to understand any of this if I don’t?”
“There are things the human mind was never meant to comprehend. And things the inhuman mind can never comprehend. Incomprehensible things.”
She nodded. “Uh-huh. Yes, that’s very clear. Thank you.”
The building trembled violently, nearly knocking both of them off their feet.
“What was that?”
“Bugs,” said West. “One tremor is nothing to worry about.”
A second quake rattled the building.
“Two is acceptable. Only pressing if it’s—”
A third shudder, less powerful but three times as long, shook the walls.
“Ah, damn. It’s always something.”
He walked past Diana and opened the front door. The city was gone. A glowing green wasteland stood in its place. A mosquito the size of a fighter jet soared overhead, kicking up radioactive dust.
West shut the door and trundled into his apartment. He found his old green toolbox. Diana stood in the doorway, blocking his progress.
“What happened?” she asked.
“World changed,” he replied. “It happens. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to fix the boiler.”
She stepped aside, but she followed him down the hall.
“That’s how it ends?”
“It didn’t end,” he said. “It changed.
“But just like that?” said Diana. “One second it’s there, the next it’s all changed?”
He took note of her voice, tinged with concern, but not overwhelmed with confusion. He smiled to himself. As a general rule, he didn’t get to know many of the tenants. The apartments consumed most souls within a few days. Some lasted longer. But only a rare few had the right combination of curiosity, common sense, and temperament to last a year.
He jammed a key in the lock and wrestled with it for several seconds. He gave the door a few kicks and rammed his shoulder into it.
“Are you sure you unlocked it?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s unlocked.” He took a moment to catch his breath. “The Hive must’ve blocked it.”
“What’s the Hive?”
He gestured toward the door, letting her know she should help him. Together they put all their weight against the door and pushed.
“Tomorrow a mutagenic radiation will cause all insects on the planet to grow to enormous size. Within a year they’ll devour all noninsect life on Earth. Within ninety years they’ll establish an interplanetary colony that will cover half the Milky Way galaxy. I call it the Hive. Although it probably calls itself something different. Or maybe they don’t even bother with words. They might not even have language. Never tried to have a conversation with the damned things.”
The door opened a few inches. A sticky substance oozed through the cracks.
“Don’t let the mucus get in your eyes unless you want to see how you die,” he warned.
With a bit more work they managed to open the door halfway, which was enough for West to squeeze through. He descended a few steps, stopped, and spoke without looking back.
“Are you coming, Number Five?”
She poked her head into the dim stairway. “Is it dangerous?”
“Worst that can happen to you is you die.”
“Oh, is that all?”
From most people this would’ve been sarcastic, but Diana understood, just as West did, that there were far worse things than death in this universe.
Diana followed him into the dark. He dug a claw hammer out of his toolbox and handed it to her. “You’ll want this. Your powers won’t work down here.”
“If you know it’s going to happen, can’t you stop it before it happens?”
“Doesn’t work that way.”
7'>
“Because the radiation always hits tomorrow. If we succeed in fixing the problem, then it will just hit the day after tomorrow. And if we stop that—”
“Got it.”
“Near as I can figure it, the Hive functions on a reversed temporal axis. Not quite a hundred and eighty degrees from what all other life on Earth uses. Maybe about one hundred and seventy-three degrees. Maybe one hundred and seventy-four.”
They plumbed deeper into the depths. At the bottom of the stairs a faint yellow glow emanated from the goo-coated walls.
“The Hive’s future pushes against our past. If the Hive succeeds in pushing itself forward, or backward if
