the first: big and swirling and more like a picture than writing. There was another, this one a weird cross between the two, at the top of the stairs from the N/Q/R platform. It was like some hidden communication was being scrawled out across the city, messages hidden in plain sight. What were they? A call to arms? A warning?
He checked left first, but didn’t see them.
Glancing right, heading for the stairs up to the S shuttle, the two men bolted up the final few steps and cut left, toward the 1 train.
Jake raced after them, caught out as they bypassed the stairs down to the trains and headed for the turnstiles instead. “ Fuck ,” he cursed, gritting his teeth, and picked up the pace. If they made it through those turnstiles, they’d be in Times Square in a few seconds and there was no way he’d find them in the busiest couple hundred yards in the world.
He pushed himself hard, powering on through the pain as he chased the pair of terrorists. That’s what they were, he realized. That’s what the night-vision goggles meant.
It hit him then.
Holy fucking Christ, what if they’ve left something down there? And then once it was in his head, it wouldn’t get out. Saran, maybe. Letting off something like that here . . . it’d take out thousands of people . . . and the trains would spread it far and wide. Fuck . Just fuck. Jake crossed himself, hoping to every god, devil, and deity he could think of right then that he was wrong about that.
“Stop them!” he yelled to everyone and no one.
Nobody paid the least bit of attention.
He slammed into the turnstile, pushing through it.
The two men were already beyond the ticket booth and the banks of machines, a couple of steps from the base of the stairs that led out, when the world exploded behind him.
The force of the blast threw Jake forward, taking him off his feet. He flew onto the backs of two women who went sprawling across the ground.
Lots of people were down.
There was no smoke, so it hadn’t been a bomb, or if it had been it had been so far down the smoke hadn’t risen yet. Still, the blast had been forceful enough to shake the foundations of the old station.
What the fuck was going on?
Jake couldn’t hear anything. His head rang with the aftershocks of the explosion. His vision was blurry. His breath came in jagged gasps. He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. But he was still breathing. That was all that mattered. His hearing would return, the shakes would stop, and his sight would sharpen.
He stumbled forward, trying to see his quarry within the chaos, but they were gone. Ghosts with concussion grenades. He’d run head-on into the blast as they dropped them over their shoulders.
Night-vision goggles, concussion grenades. This was a military maneuver.
Jake hauled himself up the stairs and out onto 42nd Street. He stopped and stared.
The two big theaters, the E-walk and the Empire 25, were just down the street to his right. On the far side of the square, NASDAQ covered in screens and displays. Bright lights, big city—yet for one of the brightest places on the planet, constant lights and motion that was enough to blind most people, it was utterly dark. There were no garish ads, no commercials, no scrolling movie trailers. There were no flashing lights at all.
All the lights in Times Square were dead.
It was all connected, wasn’t it?
It had to be.
Fort Hamilton, the subway tunnels, the blackout.
It had to be.
He heard a shout off to his left. It was the first thing he’d heard since the grenade. It came to him through a fuzz of distortion: “Where are the warriors?”
He couldn’t be sure he’d heard it right until the answer came from somewhere within the press of frightened people: “ We are the warriors!”
He moved toward the source of the shouts, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.
CHAPTER FIVE
“IT HAS BEGUN, MR. ALOM.”
“Are our pieces in place, Miss Kinch Ahau?”
“They are. And the
He checked left first, but didn’t see them.
Glancing right, heading for the stairs up to the S shuttle, the two men bolted up the final few steps and cut left, toward the 1 train.
Jake raced after them, caught out as they bypassed the stairs down to the trains and headed for the turnstiles instead. “ Fuck ,” he cursed, gritting his teeth, and picked up the pace. If they made it through those turnstiles, they’d be in Times Square in a few seconds and there was no way he’d find them in the busiest couple hundred yards in the world.
He pushed himself hard, powering on through the pain as he chased the pair of terrorists. That’s what they were, he realized. That’s what the night-vision goggles meant.
It hit him then.
Holy fucking Christ, what if they’ve left something down there? And then once it was in his head, it wouldn’t get out. Saran, maybe. Letting off something like that here . . . it’d take out thousands of people . . . and the trains would spread it far and wide. Fuck . Just fuck. Jake crossed himself, hoping to every god, devil, and deity he could think of right then that he was wrong about that.
“Stop them!” he yelled to everyone and no one.
Nobody paid the least bit of attention.
He slammed into the turnstile, pushing through it.
The two men were already beyond the ticket booth and the banks of machines, a couple of steps from the base of the stairs that led out, when the world exploded behind him.
The force of the blast threw Jake forward, taking him off his feet. He flew onto the backs of two women who went sprawling across the ground.
Lots of people were down.
There was no smoke, so it hadn’t been a bomb, or if it had been it had been so far down the smoke hadn’t risen yet. Still, the blast had been forceful enough to shake the foundations of the old station.
What the fuck was going on?
Jake couldn’t hear anything. His head rang with the aftershocks of the explosion. His vision was blurry. His breath came in jagged gasps. He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. But he was still breathing. That was all that mattered. His hearing would return, the shakes would stop, and his sight would sharpen.
He stumbled forward, trying to see his quarry within the chaos, but they were gone. Ghosts with concussion grenades. He’d run head-on into the blast as they dropped them over their shoulders.
Night-vision goggles, concussion grenades. This was a military maneuver.
Jake hauled himself up the stairs and out onto 42nd Street. He stopped and stared.
The two big theaters, the E-walk and the Empire 25, were just down the street to his right. On the far side of the square, NASDAQ covered in screens and displays. Bright lights, big city—yet for one of the brightest places on the planet, constant lights and motion that was enough to blind most people, it was utterly dark. There were no garish ads, no commercials, no scrolling movie trailers. There were no flashing lights at all.
All the lights in Times Square were dead.
It was all connected, wasn’t it?
It had to be.
Fort Hamilton, the subway tunnels, the blackout.
It had to be.
He heard a shout off to his left. It was the first thing he’d heard since the grenade. It came to him through a fuzz of distortion: “Where are the warriors?”
He couldn’t be sure he’d heard it right until the answer came from somewhere within the press of frightened people: “ We are the warriors!”
He moved toward the source of the shouts, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.
CHAPTER FIVE
“IT HAS BEGUN, MR. ALOM.”
“Are our pieces in place, Miss Kinch Ahau?”
“They are. And the
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