City Under the Moon (9 page)

“This is the virus,” said Jessica.

A highlight appeared over the virus. It looked like—Lon squinted—it looked like an Oreo, if the cookies had spikes on their edges.

“It reproduces through what we call the ‘Lytic Cycle without lysis.’ In the Lytic Cycle, the virus enters a cell, multiplies inside, and then bursts out an exponential number of progeny, or baby viruses, which then go on to infect more cells. The ‘without lysis’ part means that the initial host cell isn’t destroyed. It continues to serve as an incubator, expediting the infection even further. This particular virus spreads remarkably fast. Progeny are released within an hour, and they face no resistance because they hide inside an envelope constructed from the host cell’s membranes. In fact, white blood cells don’t even seem to recognize the intruder’s presence.”

The image was replaced by a static closer shot of the virus.

Lon leaned closer.

Those weren’t spikes on the edges. The sides of the virus—the cookies of the Oreo—were
pentagrams
.

Jessica continued speaking over the image. “We tested the spectral response of the virus under a lamp replicating the intensity and polarization of last night’s moonlight in New York. Under very short wavelengths in the x-ray region, a photocatalyzer molecule activated the virus, which in turn catalyzed genomic alterations to sections of the cell’s DNA.”

Huhwha?

“We call these sections ‘junk DNA,’ because we don’t really know what they do. But they appeared to be dormant.” Jessica’s voice went soft as she responded to someone off-screen. “Okay, we’re ready with the lamp.”

Lamp?

The video switched to a wide angle of a hospital room, where a poor, terrified woman was strapped Bride-of-Frankenstein style into a gurney and covered with electrodes and bandages and IVs.

“Kenzie, Melissa, A01” was stamped at the bottom of the screen, followed by the military time, the date, and some technical jargon about wavelengths, intensity, and polarization.

Lon couldn’t swallow. Was his imagination running wild or…

…or did everyone else think they were about to see what
he
thought they were about to see?

Thirteen

CDC Headquarters, Secure Recovery Room

Atlanta, Georgia

Melissa Kenzie struggled to remember.

She was doing her rounds in the hospital. And then
something
happened. People screaming over her. Ceilings rolling past. Vehicles. A helicopter?

She’d spoken to a charming doctor. They gave her some ice and took some blood. And then she went to sleep.

Yes, that’s what happened. They must’ve given her an anesthetic.

But why was she
here
, in a diagnostic room? This place was more elaborate than anything at Bellevue. She was strapped to a gurney (
why?
) and propped upright facing a mirror. And why was she being videotaped?

Anxiety spiked her pulse ox. The beeps pounded against her temples.

“Melissa, we’re about to run a test.” The woman’s voice came from everywhere at once, but she couldn’t see her anywhere. “Just relax. It won’t hurt, and it’ll be over in a minute.”

“Where are you?”

With a
clack
, a new light source changed the room’s color to lavender. It was quite dim…so why did it make her squint?

“What’s happening?” she cried.

Who are these people? What godforsaken thing are they doing?

She pulled at the restraints, but a tearing pain across her breast reminded her there were stitches.

Why am I restrained?

“I want to call my mother!”

No response.

How long had she been here? Did they even tell her mother?

“Please! Please let me out of here!”

She stopped struggling. Suddenly it wasn’t so important. She took a deep, refreshing breath. Finally, the volume of the pulse ox relented. Her muscles relaxed, her fog cleared. Her strength was returning. It felt good. So good.

She was
hungry
.

How long had it been since she’d eaten?

What was that smell?

God bless
, something tasty. Salty and wet and—

“Melissa, how do you feel?” the voice thundered.

“I’m okay,” she chuckled. “I’m—“

Pain
in her right shoulder. Harsh, as if she’d been kicked from behind, leaving an aching throb spreading across her shoulder blades, pushing…
pushing
her collarbone into submission.

She screamed as it struck her other shoulder. Her whole body shook from the impact. And now a searing tear on her chest, those stitches—

Dear God, am I smelling my own blood?

It seeped into her bandages, creeping red swallowing the white.

What is this pain?

Her joints erupting. Her bones pulling apart.

“Help me God, help me God…”

So hot. Sweat racing with tears. Inside, too. Boiling in her lungs.

“It hurts!”

“What hurts, Melissa?”

“Everything. Please… please help me.”

Her legs wrenching from her hips. Her shoulders arching forward, never mind that they were attached to her back, which was—
oh please God
—splitting apart. Her jaw ripping from her skull,
breaking
—

That smell…

Sparks shot through her limbs. Energy like she’d never felt, fueling such strength. She had to run—away from the pain, away from this light, this pounding noise—

But more than that she just
had to run.
The night called.

Her neck, her ears, her joints kept detonating, but the pain didn’t matter.

Now she was angry.

And hungry. And trapped. She wanted to scream.

No, not scream but—

Fourteen

CDC Headquarters, Patient Observation Room

December 31

One Minute Earlier

Jessica took a deep breath and pressed the intercom button. “Melissa, how do you feel?”

“I’m okay,” she chuckled. “I’m—“

Kenzie’s shoulder jerked violently, leaving her breathless, her mouth hanging agape, as if the pain had insulted her.

In the crowded observation room, heads perked up from monitors. Shouts came from all directions: “BP 160 over 95!” “Temp 102 and rising!”

“Help me God, help me God,” Kenzie whispered to herself. She regained her breath to scream: “It hurts!”

“Ask her to describe it.” Richard said.

“What hurts, Melissa?”

“Everything. Please…please help me…”

Kenzie shrieked as her body contorted. Her neck flared, her eyes swelled. Veins bulged through her crimson skin. She quivered breathlessly for an agonizing moment until she finally exhaled a deep, rasping
growl
.

Jessica couldn’t believe—

Kenzie’s fingers stretched right before their eyes. Thick, terrible nails pushed from her fingertips.

New hair sprouted between her knuckles, spread to her wrist, and crept up her forearm. More slinked from her sideburns to cross her cheeks.

Her face darkened as fear gave way to savagery. Her eyes yellowed.

She screamed again, but it was choked by whatever was changing her. She threw her head back as her mandible stretched to create a severe underbite.

And then came the fangs.

The pain subsided and the monster became aware. It shook off the waning agony of the transformation and celebrated with a whooping

Howl
.

Fifteen

Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building

26 Federal Plaza, Manhattan

Questions and implications and incredulity raced through Tildascow’s mind, until she realized her mouth was hanging open. She’d been leaning so close to her monitor that her eyes stung.

It had seemed impossible. Now it seemed inevitable.

Kenzie had turned into a werewolf. In real life. Right before her eyes.

Tildascow’s feed abruptly switched back to the White House conference room, where the suits had devolved into a paranoid mob. One white-haired guy stood up and spun in a circle, literally chasing his own tail.

But Rebekkah was Rebekkah, cool as a cuke. She looked to a pudgy, redheaded boy sitting next to her. He looked like he’d been plucked from some high school’s
Dungeons & Dragons
club.

He was still locked in a slack-jawed grimace from witnessing Kenzie’s physical torture. As realization crept in, his eyes grew wide behind his glasses. Suddenly, he leapt from his chair.

“Yes! Yes! I
knew
they were real! I knew it!
Yes!
”

PART THREE

One

New York City

New Year’s Eve

In the embryonic days of Manhattan, the British colonists gave the name “Longacre Square” to the bustling convergence of 42nd Street, Bloomingdale Road, and Seventh Avenue. General George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, used Longacre as a rest stop when the colonists fought for their independence in the Revolutionary War.

Longacre Square flourished as a stable and carriage district through the mid-1800s. But as the area’s population boomed, seedier elements followed. Society fled, and the southern districts of Manhattan began to thrive with upscale commerce and industrialization. Abandoned Longacre decayed into a notorious Red Light district known to locals as the “Thieves Lair.”

At the turn of the century,
The New York Times’
owner and publisher Adolph S. Ochs began construction of a new headquarters building located in the heart of Manhattan, the vertex of Longacre Square. Times Tower, at twenty-five stories, became the second-tallest building in the world. In honor of Ochs (or in his debt), Mayor George McClellan renamed the intersection “Times Square” on April 8, 1904.

Three weeks later, the first electric billboard appeared on the side of an adjacent bank. The age of American Gauche was born.

At midnight on January 1, 1905, Times Square celebrated the dawn of its first new year with a lavish party for some two hundred thousand revelers. The neighborhood’s appeal skyrocketed along with the grand finale’s fireworks. Another tradition was added two years later: a descending ball of electric lights.

Times Square transitioned into high society. Eager to escape the emotional burden of the first World War, Americans took advantage of the transportation revolution to visit mythic Manhattan. The fabulous stages, movie theaters, and hotels beneath Times Tower became celebrity hotspots and tourist magnets. Despite ever-present crime and corruption, Times Square had become the sexiest cultural hub in the world. The former “Thieves Lair” earned a new nickname: “The Tenderloin.”

But the rollicking twenties came to an end and Times Square followed the rest of the country into the Great Depression. Long abandoned by the newspaper, Times Tower fell into disrepair. In the 1940s, the electric ball went dark for two years to conserve energy during World War II.

Advertising impresario Douglas Leigh recognized the world’s lingering fascination with Times Square. In 1961, he purchased the iconic building solely for its value as billboard real estate; the tower’s office spaces weren’t even worth the cost of retrofitting the building for modern heat and air conditioning. To this day, there are no occupants above the retail floors.

It was the dawn of globalization, and Times Square’s visibility and advertising potential rose to new heights. But its darkest period was about to begin. Pornographic theaters and underground brothels boomed while crime intensified. By the mid-1970s, Time Square was the most dangerous area in New York City. Legitimate businesses fled this new incarnation of the Thieves Lair.

In 1983, twenty-three hundred crimes were reported on 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues.

And yet, Times Square was to rise again. In the latter part of the 1980s, Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins forged new developments in the western parts of Midtown, sowing the seeds for Rudolph Giuliani’s “Disneyfication” of Times Square. Quite suddenly, Times Square once again became an upscale tourist attraction. Bitter racial and cultural tensions eased and New York’s reputation soared to its greatest height since the Roaring Twenties. And the city became every American’s backyard on September 11, 2001.

By 2009, New York City was ranked as the safest of the 25 largest cities in the United States.

Today, over half a million people will pass through Times Square.

As the final hours of the year dwindled down on this crisp December night, the sun descended and the mercury plummeted. And fervent partygoers from every part of the globe converged on Times Square.

The AP predicted over one million visitors,
The New York Times
estimated 1.5 million, and Fox News reported two million. Internally, the NYPD special commander in charge put his calculation at “a cubic fuckton.”

Preparation for New Year’s Eve’s mind-boggling logistics begins weeks in advance, when the NYPD begins their intimidation game with random appearances of “Hercules teams,” black-clad NYPD shock troopers armed with assault rifles, and “Critical Response Vehicle Surges,” in which as many as forty squad cars swarm crime scenes. These spectacles are designed for the eyes of anyone who might threaten New York. And while bystanders watch the show, the NYPD watches them back.

On New Year’s Eve, Times Square is closed by 4 p.m. Entrances are accessible only at carefully monitored access points. Sniffing dogs aid police officers as they patrol on foot and bikes, in motorcycles and cars. Helicopters and hidden snipers watch from above, aided by four hundred high-speed closed-circuit cameras capable of reading a thousand license plates per second. All codes cycle through NYPD headquarters, One Police Plaza.

Emergency Medical Services, the New York City Fire Department, and Animal Care and Control assist the police, along with an invisible contingent of federal officers, including the FBI counterterrorism division. Over two hundred NYPD detectives are enrolled in the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between the FBI and the Department of Defense.

In all, nearly eight thousand law enforcement officers monitor the crowd.

Revelers are ushered into “pens,” metal barricades that divide up Times Square’s real estate and minimize the danger of stampeding. First arrivers secure the plum vantage point directly across from the ball at 43
rd
Street. The pens fill behind them, northeast through the intersection toward Central Park.

Opening festivities begin around six. This year’s celebration will include a troupe of parachuting violinists; a “tweenage” all-girl pop band populated by not one but two future porn stars; a questionably-tasteful burlesque performance sponsored by an internet site; a practice New Year’s Eve kiss; hourly appearances by celebrities including Dick Clark, Ryan Seacrest, Hugh Jackman, Kermit the Frog, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Bieber; a massive balloon release sponsored by Pepsi, and nearly two tons of flame-proof confetti branded with uplifting messages like “peace,” “hope,” “love,” “happiness,” and “health.”

Tonight, the Thieves Lair would be prowled by a new kind of predator.

Two

The Oval Office

Washington, DC

December 31

12:24 p.m.

William Weston, a conservative Democrat from Illinois, was two weeks from completing his first year as President of the United States. He was a much younger man when he took office at the age of 48 years and 11 days (as calculated by CNN). The muscles had faded from his thin frame, the salt in his hair was drowning the pepper, and the feel of his wife had become less compelling than a few moments of precious sleep. All the while, promises were broken, approval ratings dropped, wars dragged on, and the blindly partisan vultures in Congress were more concerned with their special-interest pocket-fillers than with helping him get things fixed. He couldn’t have expected anything different, but optimism was easier to muster from the other side of the podium.

One thing he knew: He had the skills for the job. He was a calm, rational, prepared man, and that was a comfort to a country that had just spent eight years as backseat passengers to an imbecilic cowboy. Just as voters put their trust in Weston, Weston learned to put his trust in himself.

Weston’s trademark “move,” as defined by the jokesters on
Saturday Night Live,
was a long, thoughtful breath taken at a desk with his hands steepled before his mouth. But Weston wasn’t intimidated; in fact, he found himself doing it more frequently as the caricature spread. It wasn’t a bad thing for the people to know that the guy in charge was taking a focused moment of consideration while they stared at their cellphones and ignored the world’s crises.

Even now, his hands were steepled under his nose.

“How the hell do they show this on television?” muttered Teddy Harrison, his Chief of Staff.

“Local news at ten in the morning,” Weston sighed. “No disclaimer, no warning. I hope the FCC is on this.”

They had been reviewing the Morning Book, a compilation of summaries, cables, and reports assembled by the White House Watch Team, when Press Secretary Jim Bunim brought them this clip from this morning’s broadcast of Channel 9 news in New York.

The tape picked up in mid-sentence, an attractive female anchor speaking to the camera. “…Holly Cooke, first cousin to First Lady Marilyn Weston, was attacked in front of Three United Nations Plaza two nights ago. Her two year-old child was abducted, and is still missing. Cooke was supposed to be at Bellevue Hospital, recovering from her wounds. But this morning, a bystander took disturbing video of a dazed and injured Mrs. Cooke walking in the middle of busy traffic on First Avenue, right near the scene of her attack.”

The picture cut to shaky cellphone footage of Holly Cooke, naked and blood-smeared, stumbling across First Avenue. At least someone at the station had had the good sense to add a digital blur to her privates.

“Help me… please God, someone help!” she screamed, spinning among unnerved onlookers. Nobody stepped up to help her.

“Mrs. Cooke was believed to be the victim of an animal, or anim
als,
that went on a rampage through lower Manhattan last night. At least four people are dead and many more injured. Animal Care and Control are asking for tips, and police said they’re checking with local zoos to see if there have been any breakouts. According to witnesses, the animals appear to be dogs or hyenas. The NYPD has released a statement saying that they’re adding to the substantial security at—“

Bunim paused the video and turned to the President. “Sir, they want to hear from you.”

Teddy spoke first. “Tell them we’re involved with the investigation. They’ll have answers when we have answers. Just remain calm, and be responsible with their reporting. We’ll have people shooting their pets.”

Weston’s intercom lit up.

“And our hearts go out to the victims,” Weston added as he checked the message from his secretary. Rebekkah Luft, his National Security Advisor, was here to see him.

“Rebekkah. Were we expecting her?” asked a surprised Weston.

Teddy shook his head no, and Bunim shrugged. This wasn’t at all regular; most updates from the National Security Agency were delivered via duty officer.

“Send her in,” Weston said.

As the door opened, all three men stood to greet Luft. Teddy proffered his chair and took another for himself from along the curved wall.

Luft looked distracted and pallid, far from her usual self. She sat without looking at the chair. Her mind was somewhere else.

“Good morning, Rebekkah,” Weston said.

“Mister President, I have a situation I need to bring to your attention.”

Three

United Nations Plaza

44th Street near First Avenue

December 31

1:22 p.m.

Brianna Tildascow’s second meatball special of the day was on the house.

She tried to pay for it—these guys sure as hell couldn’t afford to give their stuff away—but the vendor wouldn’t take a cent. Law enforcement officers often ate free because owners liked seeing blue in their shops, and he’d seen her draw her weapon and cover Holly Cooke until the police arrived. And maybe he remembered her flirty face—a dividend paid far sooner than she could have expected.

It was the first free meal she’d ever gotten as gratitude from a civilian. And it tasted even better than this morning’s breakfast, since the meatballs had marinated a few hours.

She ate while people-watching on the busy promenade of United Nations Plaza, waiting for her Department of State contact. He was predictably late. The message was both clear and trite: She’d missed her earlier appointment, and now she was paying for her disrespect.

As UN officials are always so eager to point out, the plaza isn’t
technically
a part of New York, or even the United States of America. It’s considered international soil. And the FBI is regarded as a hostile intelligence agency by the United Nations. Agents are forbidden from entering the international territory unless they’re escorted by a liaison.

Technically
, she was already in violation of that bullshit. Privately, the FBI considers the UN just as hostile. So eager to handcuff America into playing “fair” with an enemy that isn’t beholden to conventions and tribunals, so pompous in their scolding when we act in our own defense—or, God forbid, out of anger. Whether the UN liked it or not, in September of 2001 the United States of America became angry.

As planned, she waited on the plaza’s promenade by the
Non Violence
monument, a bronze sculpture of a .45 revolver with its barrel twisted into a knot. Reminded Tildascow of Valentine’s Day: sweet sentiment, obviously impractical, easy to ignore. And, like the UN’s effectiveness, it was absurdly puny. The base barely came to her shoulders.

The sculpture marked the northwestern corner of the complex, between the curved row of flags representing each of the UN’s member countries and the flower-lined garden that served as the plaza’s front lawn. It was the public gateway to the United Nations Headquarters, the north face of the General Assembly Building.

The GA Building’s tasteless vertical stripes of marble and glass struck her as a hideous amalgam of Greek and Asshole, but that’s what you get when you try to please all of the countries all of the time. Beyond it to the south, the Secretariat Building, a monolithic steel domino, blocked New York’s view of the East River and beyond. Not that there was much to see in Queens.

As flocks of pedestrians crisscrossed the promenade, she read the front-page story of
The New York Times
on her BlackBerry. The headline was priceless: “Who let the dogs out?”