The Man Who Ended the World (16 page)

Clarissa follows him into the kitchen space. 

Henry puts his glass down and starts tapping away at the screen on the refrigerator. The display cycles through the available beverages, and Henry  scans them idly. There's a category marked Cocktails, and he laughs at some of the names. 

Slippery nipple, he says. Look at this, there's one called Sex on the Beach!

Clarissa sighs. I think something bad is happening, and you want to get drunk.

I wouldn't really drink them, he says. He navigates to the juice category and taps Pineapple. 

There's a whisper of sound behind her, and she jumps. 

What was that? she says.

I didn't hear anything, Henry says, taking a long gulp of juice. 

I want to hide, Clarissa says. 

Why? Henry says. We practically live here now. We should be comfortable in our --

He stops. 

What? What? Clarissa says frantically. 

He points. Just beyond the cabinets, the holomap has sprung to life. Then, to their shared horror, a man walks into view, circling and studying the map. 

Oh shit, Henry hisses, and grabs Clarissa. He claps his hand over her mouth, and they drop into a crouch behind the cabinets. 

He peeks around the corner. 

The man is conducting the holomap like a symphony. The map bulges, stretches, expands as the man makes wild gestures. He's wearing a red T-shirt, purple pajama pants, and is barefoot. 

It's Mr. Glass, Henry whispers. 

Clarissa's almost crying, she's so scared. 

Henry turns back to watch as the holomap zooms on a broad room. There, at the center of the zoom, is a pulsing yellow dot.

And there, at the edge of the display, horribly obvious to Henry, are two more dots, one blue, one pink. 

His dot, and Clarissa's. 

We have to go, he says urgently. Hurry, hurry. 

What? 

We're on his radar, Henry whispers. We have to crawl out of range! 

Where? Clarissa is crying now. 

He points. Go that way as fast as you can, but be quiet!

The children crawl quickly through the kitchen, afraid at any moment that Mr. Glass will appear behind them. On the far side of the cabinets, they round a short wall and press themselves against it. 

He's terrified that when he looks back, Mr. Glass will be staring right at him, but Henry peeks around the wall anyway. He can still see Mr. Glass standing at the map, but now, to his great relief, his dot, and Clarissa's, are not visible. 

But all Mr. Glass has to do is zoom out, and he'll likely see their pulsing beacons not far from his own. 

Clarissa is a wreck. 

Henry wishes he had a weapon.

Stacy is nowhere to be found.

•   •   •

Steven switches the map off. 

He is not aware that, just sixty yards away, two children have just breathed enormous sighs of relief. 

Steven walks across the room to the empty space that Stacy and Charlotte had examined before. He counts steps, then kneels down. A very small section of the hardwood is almost imperceptibly lighter than the rest of the floor. The visual difference is so slight that Steven has sometimes had to hunt for it.

He pops open a panel there with his thumbnail. 

Inside is a fat red button. 

Tomas the architect had, at this point, stopped asking questions. The rich man wants a big red danger button? Okay. He can have the big red danger button. 

Steven kind of likes the novelty of it.

He pushes the button. 

Across the room, Henry flinches as he watches the floor around Mr. Glass shudder, then rise on a giant hydraulic pillar. 

The floor carries Steven upward at a pleasant rate. As he approaches the ceiling above, it separates. His elevator floor pushes up into it, then stops. 

Below, Henry stares wide-eyed at the gaping empty rectangular hole in the panic room floor, and up at the huge pillar that has just stopped moving. 

Clarissa says, What's up there? 

Henry says, I don't know. 

I'm really scared. 

Me, too. 

This doesn't seem like a very good idea anymore, she says. What if he finds us? He could just throw us in that hole and let the floor crush us. 

Henry nods. I think that Stacy was supposed to keep us hidden on that map. Something went wrong, and she didn't. He almost found us.

On our very first day, Clarissa adds.

They stare up at the ceiling.

Where do you think she is? Clarissa asks.

Henry can only shake his head. 

•   •   •

Stacy's avatar blooms on the panic room wall beside the sofa. 

Let's say I love a good mystery, she says. 

But the sofa is empty, and the children are gone. 

Stacy scans the panic room. The children's beacons are broadcasting from the far corner, nearly two hundred yards away. 

She dims, then reappears above their heads. 

The children jump at the sudden glow. 

Stacy says, Several things are of immediate concern to me right now. 

Henry says, Turn off the fucking light! 

Stacy's avatar vanishes, and the corner of the room falls back into near-complete darkness. 

You were both located on the sofa, and then you weren't, Stacy says. 

No shit, Clarissa says. Now we're here in the dark like rats. 

Where did you go? Henry demands. 

Go? Stacy says. 

You just disappeared, Clarissa says. And then we almost violated the prime directive, and got killed, and it's all your fault. You're supposed to protect us!

Stacy's avatar blooms to life again.

The light! Henry snaps. 

There's nobody on this level to see us, Stacy says. Mr. Glass is currently in his personal quarters with Charlotte. 

Are you sure? Because we can't really trust you anymore, Clarissa says.

Stacy converts one wall to video and displays a feed of Mr. Glass's room. Both of the children wrinkle their noses at the activity in progress on Mr. Glass's bed.

That's gross, Clarissa says. You're a pervert robot, Stacy.

I detect elevated levels of stress, Stacy says. In both of you. 

You're goddamn right, Henry says.

Also, I am detecting a rise in profanities. 

Clarissa snorts. 

Clearly something has happened, Stacy says. Children are not capable of teleporting across great distances on their own, and my system time shows that hours have passed. 

You're lucky you didn't come back and find both of us in pieces, Clarissa says. 

Come back? Stacy says. 

Yeah, Henry says. You deserted us. 

Tell me what happened, Stacy says. 

•   •   •

You really can't see this? Henry asks. 

He's on his knees on the floor. Clarissa has located the hidden panel, and has managed to open it. In the process, she's torn a fingernail, so she bites it off.

Describe it to me, Stacy says.

This is so weird, Clarissa says. You know everything about this place. How come you can't see this? 

There's a little secret door in the floor, Henry says. 

What are the dimensions? Stacy asks. Approximately, of course.

I don't know, Henry says.

Maybe two inches across, and four inches long, Clarissa says. And when it's open, there's a red push-button inside. It looks like a, you know, danger button.

A panic button, Henry says. 

When Mr. Glass pushed the button, what happened? 

The whole floor turned into an elevator, Henry says.

What are the dimensions of the section of the floor that was lifted? Stacy asks. 

I don't know, Henry says.

I don't know either, Clarissa says. It's pretty big. 

I suppose any competent digital architect could hide secret functions from an A.I., Stacy confesses. All you would need to do is remove that function from the local network, and initiate its power cycle manually.

So he could have hidden all sorts of things from you? Henry asks. 

Theoretically, Stacy says. I do have the ability to identify likely places for these sorts of secret, analog functions. It's not difficult to isolate segments of each level that appear to be dramatically purposeless. 

I want to push the button, Henry says. 

What if it goes all the way to the top? Clarissa says. What if the end of the world already happened and it's madness up there? 

If the end of the world had happened, Stacy would tell us, Henry argues. 

Would she? Clarissa asks. She stares down Stacy's avatar. Would you?

I can provide you with regular updates if you like, Stacy says. Probabilities are quite high right now. Mr. Glass is monitoring external activities himself, via satellite and Internet feeds, and has spent notable amounts of time reading reports about threat levels and international travel warnings. 

So the world's about to end because of those things? Henry asks.

I think what she means is that whatever Mr. Glass has been doing in secret, it's causing all of these things to happen, Clarissa explains. 

Oh, you're so smart, Henry says. 

In addition, Stacy says, there are early bystander reports of missile launches from three Eastern nations. 

The children stop bickering.

Did you say launches? Henry asks. 

Are the reports for real? Clarissa asks.

Children, Stacy says. I was going to ask you to hide away so that when Mr. Glass falls asleep I might send Charlotte to examine this discovery you've made. I now think it may be prudent for the two of you to do this now. 

What if we get caught? Clarissa demands. 

Yeah, Henry says. You didn't disguise our dots like you said. 

Children, Stacy says. Hurry. Now.

Henry punches the button, and they begin to rise. 

Stacy says, I cannot follow you. Listen closely.

The End

Steven, Stacy says.

Steven stirs slightly in his bed. One leg is draped over Charlotte's. His face rests between her breasts. With one hand, Charlotte strokes his hair as he sleeps. 

Steven, Stacy repeats. 

He blinks awake. 

What, he says, his words muffled by Charlotte's skin. 

Steven, I believe that the time is near, Stacy says. 

He leaps from the bed. His balance is uncertain, and his momentum sends him sprawling into the wall. He recovers, planting one hand on the wall to steady himself. 

Where are we at, he says, breathing heavily.

The President is already on Air Force One, Stacy says, and there are reports that the Vice President and other key officials are en route to a secure and unspecified location. 

Shit, he says. Something happened fast. Do we know what? 

News reports are curiously vague, Stacy says. Most broadcasts have been interrupted by breaking reports, but there is little concrete information being shared. 

People are going to be afraid, he says. 

Yes, Stacy says. 

This is so big, he says excitedly. 

Yes, Stacy agrees. 

•   •   •

Reports that President Bennett and her staff have evacuated the White House are unconfirmed by administration officials, the reporter says. However, this station has received two separate confirmations from trusted Washington insiders that this is exactly what has happened. Furthermore, these sources have suggested that President Bennett may currently be aboard Air Force One, suggesting, again, that the President is aware of a threat that we currently are not. 

Steven leans forward.

We've got former Secretary of State Roderick Ianetta here to comment, the reporter continues. Secretary Ianetta, thank you for your time today. 

Stacy, Steven says. I want you to keep a running archive of everything being broadcast right now. Back everything up multiple times. I want to be able to spend time piecing all of this together when it's over.

Stacy says, Archiving. 

As most Americans may know, Ianetta is saying, the administration has several plans whose sole requirement is to safeguard the lives of key officials when a credible, pervasive threat has been received. In the case of today's reports -- 

Unconfirmed reports, the reporter interjects.

Unconfirmed, of course, Ianetta says. In this case, let's assume the reports are true. If the President is in the air, and the Vice President is on his way to a secure location, then it may be possible to speculate about the nature of the threat received.

What sort of a threat would prompt the administration to leave Washington? the reporter asks.

Steven squints at Ianetta's face as he answers.

There's really just one, Ianetta says. I'd rather not say it, but it's the one you're thinking of. 

Steven says, I wonder if we'll feel it down here.

And the television feed vanishes.

•   •   •

Stacy! Steven shouts. 

He's running for the data library. 

Stacy's avatar appears on the ceiling above the central desk. Yes, she says.

I want every generator ready to go, just in case. I want you to cycle down level three, and halt any unnecessary functions on level two. 

And level four? Stacy asks. 

Take everything down except for this room, he says. 

Outside of the library, the entire floor vanishes into darkness. The same happens on the two levels above him. 

Now put every feed you can find on the walls, please, he says, surprisingly calm. 

The wall blinks and pulses and becomes a checkerboard of television feeds. There are nearly two hundred, but several are already dark, with SIGNAL LOST floating across their empty pictures. 

That one, he says, pointing. 

Stacy tracks the trajectory of Steven's pointing finger, and enlarges a feed for a small station in Virginia. The picture is gritty and shot on a handheld camera, and depicts Washington D.C. from some distance. The sky is wool sock gray, with loose threads of smoke unraveling across it. The picture is tagged with the word LIVE, and the station logo. 

Washington is burning. There are scattered lights in the sky -- helicopters and planes -- and Steven watches, captivated.