Broken Read online

  "Of all the nonsense," Lydia said. "This house is fireproof. Isn’t it, Andrew?"

  Andrew turned red. "Sure. Sure, it is. I built it that way."

  Michael seethed. Cheap bastard. He didn’t and he can’t admit it.

  "They’re coming tonight," he said. "You have to go."

  "Nothing on the screens about it," deep-voiced Shawn growled. "No mob near here. We’re safe. Go back to bed."

  "I looked outside," Jane added. "Nothing. Michael, are you all right?"

  "You’re all in danger!" Michael said, getting hysterical. "Please, listen! I can see the future, I know it’s going to happen tonight! Please!"

  To his shock, Andrew laughed. "Oh, Mike, it’s been a hard day. And we’re all worried about Janeane. But we’re safe! I promise."

  Michael scanned each of their faces in turn.

  —Flames, flames…fire...

  Unavoidable. There were no other endings for any of them.

  "Burn, then," he spat, scared and disgusted, and turned his back on them. Broken followed without saying a word.

  Monica met them at the back door. He spun away, not wanting to see her future set aflame.

  "Take me with you," she said softly. Her jet-black hair was a mess, and she looked like she'd been crying. She wore a pack on her back,. "Please. I believe you. Janeane left me a note, explaining. She... she knew things, too. So I figure you must be right. Please?"

  He had three tickets.

  One for him. One for Ian. One for Broken.

  One for Monica? There weren’t enough. Still. Still.

  He nodded. "All right. Come on."

  The four of them set off into the harsh winter night.

  * * *

  They struck north, away from the riots. Half an hour later, as they crested a hill by the bank of the frozen Hudson, Monica dared to look back.

  The neighborhood where they had lived was a sea of flame.

  Broken put her arm around the young woman and led her away, as tears ran down both of their cheeks.

  Michael glanced at Monica. Her future was bound to theirs now. They walked down the hill as Ian moaned softly in the cold. The moon, silvery and uncaring, shone overhead.

  [CHAPTER 10]

  The streets north of New York were mobbed with people fleeing the carnage in the city.

  "What’s happening?" Michael asked a man with three children and a pack full of belongings slung on his back.

  "Black Bands are torching entire neighborhoods," he gasped, struggling under his heavy load. "Anyone with a UNP registration is getting hauled in."

  "Is anyone fighting back?" Monica asked.

  The man sighed. "Yeah. They’re getting killed. Black Bands were ready for ‘em."

  "I saw six cops turn on the Black Bands," a younger man said. "They got shot, too. But cops are fightin’ ‘em."

  "Good," a woman whispered viciously. "I hope they all die."

  "Which?" someone asked her. "Cops or Black Bands?"

  "All of them."

  Michael nodded. He’d seen this sort of day in some people’s futures. Many of them had been police or Black Bands.

  They blended in with the crowd, just four more refugees heading north. Several times along the way, they saw squads of Black Bands keeping watch over the road. Vehicles carrying more Black Bands and even some Army troops passed through the crowds, heading south towards the fighting. They could hear, from time to time, the roar of aircraft overhead.

  Morning dawned, cold and miserable. Michael felt like he had been walking for most of his life. Ian had stopped crying, but Michael could tell his diaper was wet, and he was probably badly chafed. There was nothing he could do. If he stopped, what would happen? Better to keep moving.

  There was an empty lot where refugees camped, warmed by fires started in old metal trash barrels. Michael, Monica, and Broken sat together, as close to one of the barrels as they could get. Michael put a fresh diaper on Ian, leaving the old one where it fell.

  Someone had brought a portable media screen, and set it up near where they were huddled. Almost all of the refugees turned to watch. A stunningly beautiful woman, wearing a serious expression, sat at a desk, reading the latest news.

  "...Continuing coverage of the terrorist uprising in New York, where it is reported that traitorous police, loyal to the now-banned UNP, have been engaging the Civil Guard"—apparently they were calling the Black Bands the Civil Guard now—"and the military in sporadic fighting in the city’s residential areas. It is believed that the terrorists are attempting to use the population as human shields. We urge citizens to do everything they can to cooperate with government forces, or just to remain as safe as possible." Pictures of fighting flashed on the screen. "Military sources say that our government has reclaimed most of the city from the terrorists, and that the last few nests should be wiped out shortly." More pictures of heroic-looking soldiers and Black Bands appeared.

  Broken gasped. There was a flying man wearing the uniform of the Black Bands.

  "Extrahuman Union leader Sky Ranger, who recently added his organization to the long list of Civil Guard Reserves, helped to contain the terrorist threat," the gorgeous woman said.

  Sky Ranger looked directly into the camera. "Any sort of violence against the lawfully elected government is illegal, and morally wrong. I urge anyone who is still fighting to put down your weapons. You will be treated well."

  The announcer nodded. "Thank you, Sky Ranger. Now here is a look at today’s weather—"

  Michael turned away. Not a word about the Black Bands torching neighborhoods. Nothing about UNP members being arrested. Or murdered.

  Broken was sitting quietly. "How could he?" she asked no one in particular.

  "That son of a bitch Sky Ranger," someone nearby growled. "I saw him blasting away at a position manned by old men and boys. Some fucking hero."

  A murmur of tired agreement rippled through the crowd, then subsided.

  Broken shook her head. "He’s a good man," she muttered. "A good man. A good man." She patted her cloak. "Where’s my bottle? Where’s my booze? Did I leave it?" She kept muttering and swearing to herself for a while. No one responded.

  * * *

  Gossip and rumor started to spread through the camp.

  "Peltan’s dead," one person insisted. "My brother in Australia told me."

  "Lin is still alive," said another. "She’s fighting with the rebels now."

  Others were more realistic. "The UNP is fighting in Western Australia. Supposedly they have control of Perth."

  "No, they’re basing themselves out of Sydney."

  "I heard there’s a war up in space."

  "Half the colonies have seceded! My father says so."

  "The Rätons have invaded," another said. This caused a hush. "They have Mantillies and Quela, and are heading for Earth now."

  "Says who?"

  "My friend says he heard it from a Black Band."

  A heated argument followed. Was it better to live under Peltan, or the Rätons? Humans had been allies with the Rätons before, during the long Rogarian War. That was twenty-five years in the past, though. What would the Rätons be like now? No one could agree.

  Everyone was starting to get hungry. "Where’s the government?" cried more than one person. "Why don’t they feed their people?"

  "Maybe they really are gone," a few whispered. "Maybe the government fell, and we’re on our own."

  Michael knew that none of the rumors were true.

  An oldtimer sighed. "It was like this during the Last War, too," he told Michael and anyone else who would listen. "I was a boy then, but things don’t change."

  Michael saw Monica reach into her pack.

  "What are you doing?" He was next to her in a flash.

  "Getting some food," she said. A few heads turned her way.

  "Not here. You want to start another riot? Come on. We should keep moving."

  "Why? Look, I’m hungry. Ian’s hungry, too. I bet you didn’t bring any
formula."

  "Just trust me," Michael said. "Let’s go. Quietly. This place isn’t safe."

  "Why should I trust you? Fuck you!" She buried her head in her arms. "My family is dead. They’re all dead. Jane, Andrew, Lydia, Fred, Shawn—Oh, God! They can’t be—" She sobbed uncontrollably. Michael, not knowing what else to do, put an arm around her.

  "We should go," Broken said.

  "I know," Michael said helplessly. "But we can wait a few minutes."

  * * *

  A phalanx of Black Bands showed up about half an hour later. They had bread and water, which they tossed in huge packages down to the crowd. People scrambled to get what they could.

  Michael tried to restrain Broken from leaping into the fray, but couldn’t stop her. She returned a few minutes later with six loaves of bread, a split lip, a black eye, and a huge grin on her face. Monica watched in horrified fascination as Broken’s lip repaired itself.

  "Jesus," she said.

  "It’s something she can do," Michael explained lamely.

  "I wish I could do that," Monica said.

  "Me, too," agreed Michael. Ian started crying. "Can he eat bread?"

  "Does he have any teeth?" Monica asked.

  "No."

  "Then probably not."

  They ate some of the bread, staying put despite Broken’s repeated demands to leave. Michael wanted to press onward, too, but he was so tired…

  "What are they doing?" Monica wanted to know. Soldiers, along with a few Black Bands, had taken up positions around the perimeter of the camp and were now simply standing there, watching the crowd.

  Michael looked at them. Their possibilities came in vague flashes; nothing specific or useful came to him. "No idea. Maybe we should go."

  "Yeah," said Monica.

  "Right," Broken agreed. "Time to go."

  At the edge of the camp, an armed Black Band stopped them. "Where are you going? Do you have identification?"

  "ID was lost when the house was set on fire," Michael said. "Sorry. We’re going to go to her sister’s place in, uh, Danbury."

  The Black Band did a quick search of their packs. He took some of the food they’d been carrying and passed it out to his friends. He examined the pack of thin diapers closely, and decided he didn’t want it. Michael tried not to think about about the money and tickets from Janeane he had strapped to his leg. "Go ahead," the Black Band said at last.

  They went without complaint. What else was there to do?

  * * *

  They joined a stream of refugees heading further north. A few had vehicles, now, and were carrying people anywhere they could fit them. Men, women, and children clung to the sides, roof, trunk, and even underneath any vehicle that passed by, if just to get momentary relief from walking.

  Michael asked everyone he could about the latest news. New York was mostly back in the government's hands, but the riots and arrests hadn’t stopped. Anyone who had ever been associated with the UNP was leaving, quickly.

  But where was there for them to go? Refugee camps had sprouted all over Westchester, but most of these were being guarded by Black Bands and the Army. What would happen when the Black Bands decided to see who was who? Michael didn’t want to be around for it. No more refugee camps, he informed Monica and Broken. They didn’t object.

  * * *

  They weren't entirely certain where they were going. Michael's prescience didn't help one bit. He was blind to the future, for now, driven only by the need to go southwest to Delmarva. Media screens, usually plastered to the sides of buildings, spewed news at them. New York was still unsafe. Fighting still raged, but the government was winning. The government had mopped up all but the worst of the cells. The streets were still too dangerous; citizens had been told in no uncertain terms to stay inside.

  There was very little news from the rest of the planet, or from the twenty or so other worlds that made up the Confederation.

  Little by little, the refugees dropped away, herded into camps by newly arrived Confederation soldiers and local Black Bands. Each time the soldiers or the thugs who looked like soldiers beckoned, Michael, Monica, and Broken walked on. No one stopped them.

  They passed the Bush Tunnel, which ran under the Tappan Zee. The entrances were guarded by Black Bands in armored vehicles. They kept walking. There were other bridges, other tunnels.

  Ian was crying, but they had little food to give him. Monica mashed up some bread and watered it down; he could swallow this, but he obviously didn’t like it. He was much harder to carry, by now; he had gained a good deal of weight under Jane's care.

  From time to time, they saw flights of hundreds of small flying craft—flitters, fighters, and wingers, all heading for the city. They had come far enough not to be able to hear the dull thud of explosions, or the sharp staccato of gunfire.

  "I wonder," Monica said. "I wonder what will happen tomorrow?"

  "Who knows?" Michael said with a shrug.

  She looked sharply at him. "Aren’t you supposed to know the future? That's what Janeane said. That's what you told us. Can’t you just tell me what’s going to happen?"

  He shook his head. "No, sorry. It doesn’t really work that way." He took a deep breath. "What I do, is I look at someone’s face. I have to look directly, or it doesn’t work. That’s why I look down a lot."

  "I hadn’t noticed," Monica said.

  "Well, I do," said Michael, a little chagrined. "I don’t want to see everything that’s going to happen to everybody."

  "Why not?" Monica asked. "Aren’t you curious?"

  "Go crazy," Broken snorted.

  Michael nodded. "Yeah. Go crazy."

  "Knew a guy," Broken said. "He could read minds. Didn’t take nothin’ to look and see what was on someone’s mind. Had to try hard to keep thoughts out. Told me people think about sick things, all the time, every day. Everybody’s crazy, he said. But who knows? Just him."

  "What happened to him?" Monica asked.

  "Went to a colony," Broken said. "Bought a thousand acres of desert somewhere. Don’t know which planet. Said he wanted to get away from everybody."

  "Can’t blame him," Michael said.

  "Is it like that for you?" Monica asked.

  "It’s a little like that, but not quite so bad. There’s so much information. I have to try and sort it out. When I look at someone, I see their possible futures."

  "So you can see what will happen tomorrow," Monica said.

  "Not exactly," Michael admitted. "I see glimpses. Images. I don’t see everything. I usually don’t get surroundings or dates, just flashes. And it's not what will happen, just what could. At least that's how I understand it."

  "Sucks," Broken said. "I used to fly. That’s more fun."

  [CHAPTER 11]

  The sun crept upwards, then began slipping down the sky’s broad inner curve again. They had covered too many miles to count. Michael’s feet were killing him. There were far fewer refugees on the road here; they had somehow veered off the main track, and onto a side road.

  Now they were right by the river. Trees blossomed from the brown-red husks of ancient buildings; here and there an intact house glowed with electric life. But most houses along the road were long since abandoned. The forests of old New York were reclaiming what man had stolen.

  "There used to be more people," Broken said. "But they all either died in the war or went to a colony." She remembered Sky Ranger telling her that. He seemed very sad when he said it. She never understood why. Weren’t the people on the colonies better off? And the people who were dead didn’t feel anything at all.

  "Joe said that Americans didn’t want to be in their country anymore after we—they—lost the Last War," Michael said thoughtfully. "It was a sin to be an American. Joe said that we—Americans—used to be very proud."

  "Who was Joe?" asked Monica.

  "A friend of my father," said Michael. "He raised me, mostly."

  Broken didn’t remember her father. Had she ever had one? Yes, she mu
st have. She wondered what he had looked like. Somehow, she kept seeing Sky Ranger—not the one who flew above New York now (don’t think about what he’s doing, she told herself firmly)—but the old one. The one she had known as a little girl; the old man Sky Ranger inherited his title from. She’d met him when the Union first took her in.

  Before that point… she had no memories at all save one.

  * * *

  There was endless water all around her. No… behind her was soft sand, sharp rocks. Further out, mighty walls of water crashed into the continent. She looked down into the salty water of the tidepool. A strange face waved and jumped atop the shifting sea. Behind it, something small scuttled past.

  She reached in to pluck it out, but it caught her and pulled with all its might.

  "_____!" she called. (Who could she be calling to?)

  But no one came. The thing pulled again, and she disappeared underwater.

  "Now," said the beast, "you belong to me." It had a thousand tentacles, and one giant mouth.

  She screamed.

  * * *

  Michael and Monica stared at her.

  "B?" Monica held a hand out. "Are you okay?"

  Broken nodded. She was on her back, lying in the road.

  She needed to stop remembering. She could do that. She needed a drink.

  * * *

  A light snow began to fall as night blanketed the empty land. All four of them shivered—even Ian, wrapped snugly in his blanket, quivered and wailed mournfully.

  "We need to find shelter," Michael said, looking at Monica and Broken. "This is going to be a big storm. We don’t want to be caught in it."

  "You predict that?" Monica asked.

  "Yes," Michael said. "Just now, looking at you."

  But no places of shelter made themselves apparent.

  "Keep walking," Michael said grimly. "Keep walking."

  Monica snapped,"You predict that? Did you predict a place to get out of the snow? You predict anything useful?"

  "Shut up," Michael growled. They walked faster, despite their aching feet.

  Then, below, on the riverbank, they saw a swaying light. Michael could vaguely make out the shape of a man standing by it. It was a boat; the man stood on a short dock, untying it.