Extinction

Dongshan Avenue, tossing cars and trucks and buses in the air. But before she could breathe a sigh of relief, a second, higher wave rushed up the stairway and lashed against the truck bed. Kirsten lost control of the vehicle and they careened to the right, but their forward momentum carried them over the last steps. With a final jolt, the cab broke off from the truck bed and slid across the plaza at the top of the stairway.

The cab came to rest on its driver-side door. Kirsten was scrunched between her seat and the door, with Jim lying on top of her. After a bit of maneuvering, he slammed his prosthesis against the passenger-side door, bursting it open. Then he reached for Kirsten and helped her out of the wreck.

Once they were out of the truck and standing on the plaza, Jim looked her over. “You okay?” he asked. “Anything broken?”

She took a moment to examine herself. She had a few cuts on her hands and forearms, but no serious injuries. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Kirsten expected him to grab her arm and start running across the plaza, but, instead, he stepped forward and hugged her. She looked over his shoulder and saw the stairway going down to the flooded city. Yichang’s downtown looked like a vast marsh with a thousand square islands, each a city block full of demolished masonry. Hundreds of overturned vehicles floated in the black water. And countless bodies.

She started to cry. Her ruined eyes could still do that. They filled with tears, but because her vision came from the video cameras in her glasses, the ghastly image of Yichang remained unblurred. “My God,” she whispered. “There’s millions of them. Millions.”

Jim tightened his hold on her. “It’s Supreme Harmony. The network did this.”

“But why?”

“Shit, I don’t know. The goddamn—” His voice broke. Kirsten saw several other survivors standing at the top of the stairs. Most of them were crying, too.

Finally, after a minute or so, Jim let go of her and stepped back. “We need to go,” he said. “Maybe we can find another vehicle once we get out of the city. Can you walk?”

She nodded. “Which way?”

“The flood’s gonna knock down every bridge over the Yangtze from here to the Pacific. The only thing to do is head west. Maybe we can cross the river at Chongqing.”

He took her hand and they headed across the plaza. Beyond the railway station, the tree-covered ridge extended to the outskirts of the city, offering a dry path around the flooded areas. “We’ll be a little safer, I guess,” she said. “The local police will have their hands full.”

“Yeah, we’re safer.” He squeezed her hand. “At least for now.”

SIXTY-ONE

The air duct was much longer than Layla had expected. She’d thought it might extend thirty or forty feet before leading to an outlet vent somewhere on the mountainside, but, instead, it took a roundabout course through the Yunnan Operations Center. Layla felt her way through the pitch-black conduit, running her hands along the duct’s sheet-metal walls while pushing her jacket and pistol in front of her. Every twenty feet or so she felt warm air coming out of a small hole in the sheet metal on the duct’s left side. These holes, she assumed, must be smaller ducts that vented other rooms in the complex and channeled the air to the main duct that she was crawling through.

The sheet metal grew warmer as Layla moved forward. She started to worry about the boys from Lijiang, who were so far ahead of her that she couldn’t hear their scuffling progress. She listened carefully, but all she heard were the distant bursts of gunfire coming from the computer room, way behind her. Wen Hao was still back there, still holding the Modules at bay. Although Layla knew he had two semiautomatic pistols, she had no idea how many bullets were in each gun or how many shots he’d fired so far. Whatever the count, he couldn’t hold out much longer.

Layla was scuttling on her elbows and knees when she banged her head against a sheet-metal panel in front of her. After a few seconds of disorientation, she ran her hands along the walls and realized she’d come to a T-junction. One branch of the duct extended to her right and the other to her left, and they seemed to be exactly the same size. She couldn’t tell which branch the schoolboys had chosen, right or left. She held her breath and listened again, but she couldn’t hear a damn thing. At the same time, she realized with alarm that she hadn’t heard any gunshots for the past half-minute or so. Her heart pounded as she imagined Wen Hao sprawled on the floor beside the server racks, with the blank-faced Modules standing over him. She felt a surge of rage and an almost overwhelming desire to return to the computer room with her pistol blazing. But a moment later she finally did hear another distant exchange of gunfire. Wen was still alive. He might be doomed, but he wasn’t dead yet. And as the echoes of the gunshots faded away she recognized another sound, the familiar high-pitched keening of the schoolboys. It came from the duct branching off to the left.

She scrambled as fast as she could in that direction. Soon she heard the boys’ cries quite clearly. Thank God for their healthy lungs. The ventilation system was louder here, and the warm air blew fiercely through the duct, buffeting Layla from behind. Worse, the metal walls in this branch were hot enough to burn her elbows and knees. But she kept pushing forward, moving toward the crying boys. After a few seconds she saw a glimmer of daylight reflected off the sheet metal. Up ahead, the duct turned to the right, and the light grew stronger as Layla approached the bend. Then she turned the corner and saw the outlet vent, a large bright square covered with a crosshatched grate. Two small figures huddled in front of the vent, both clutching the grate as they stared desperately at the world outside.

Layla called out “Hey!” as she crawled toward the boys. They spun around, terrified, and howled even louder. They kept screaming even after she came close enough for them to recognize her. But somehow Layla knew what to do. Thinking of her father, she yelled, “Quiet!” in the firmest, most commanding voice she could manage. And though the boys didn’t understand a word of English, they fell silent. Then Layla said in a gentler tone, “Let me through,” and the boys moved aside so she could examine the grate.

The crosshatched grille was held in place by four nuts and bolts, and under ordinary circumstances it would’ve been impossible to loosen them without a pair of pliers. But whoever installed this vent hadn’t applied any paint to the fittings. Exposed to large quantities of warm, moist air, the grate and its bolts had become mottled with rust. Layla braced herself against the duct’s hot walls and started kicking the vent with all her might. She slammed Wen Hao’s cheap running shoes against the metal grille, over and over again. After a full minute of strenuous effort, the grate gave way.

The schoolboys rushed for the opening, but Layla yelled, “Stop!” in her commanding voice and they froze. Then she cautiously peered outside. The vent was on a mountainside, as she’d expected, and the slope was rocky and steep. Directly opposite was another mountainside, less steep and much greener, and at the bottom of the ravine between the mountains was a slender brown river. The morning sun shone on the opposite mountain, but the river was still in shadow, which meant they were on the eastern side of the ravine. Layla looked to the north and south but didn’t see any signs of civilization; the mountain range went on for miles in both directions. But to the north she spied a footpath carved into the slope. It was narrow and studded with rocks and Layla didn’t know how far it went, but right now it was her best option. She needed to get far away from the Operations Center and hike to some village or town where she could hide the children. If she was lucky, she’d find a grandmotherly type who would take pity on the schoolboys and offer them shelter without asking too many questions. Then Layla would figure out a way to alert the world to the existence of Supreme Harmony.

She put on her down jacket and stuffed the pistol in one of the pockets. Then she pointed to the jackets that the boys had cast aside in the duct. “Take them with you,” she ordered. “You might need them later.”

Again, the boys followed her instructions, which were so simple they didn’t need translating. Then Layla grasped their hands and set out for the footpath. The slope was treacherous, covered with small sliding rocks, so she walked slowly and concentrated on keeping the boys steady. For a moment she thought of Wen Hao, who was almost certainly dead by now. The most important thing, he’d told her, was the safety of the children. She gripped their hands a little tighter and took another step.