Periphery, page 32
Andrew and his family were gathered in the center of the room around his father. The climb up had taken twenty minutes. Anna didn’t like the ladders. The rungs were spaced for an adult, not a six-year-old. Still, she insisted on climbing by herself, despite Andrew’s offer to carry her.
“Son.” His father’s greeting after he and Anna and Grace had emerged through the trapdoor was more a wavering sigh of grief that an attempt at melody, and Andrew had shaken his head, already knowing what would come next.
“Andy,” he started again. “I’m so damn sorry you and your family got pulled into this.”
“Not your fault, Dad.” He went to where his father sat reclining against a final ladder ascending through the center of the room to a hole in the roof twenty feet above. “Don’t blame yourself. You may be our last hope.”
“Your plan didn’t work?”
Andrew decided to interpret his father’s tone as one of pain rather than panic. “Don’t know yet. Will said they had one last chance to destroy a coil.” He glanced at the sky through the barred windows. “Won’t be long before we find out.” He placed a hand gently on his father’s shoulder. “They said you’d been hurt.”
“Ribs are sore from climbing up here. I’ll live. Emily’s got a bag of magic pills.” He nodded toward the doctor climbing into the observation room. “Every time I feel like passing out she gives me another.”
“Is grandpa going to be okay?” Anna had asked from her mother’s lap. The concern in her voice was a blue flame of humanity that collapsed all the anxieties of the morning into a simple question of pain and the alleviation of suffering.
His father smiled. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, darling. Your granddad is one tough old bird.” His arm rose and fell. “You’ve gotten so big.”
Andrew realized with a pang his father hadn’t seen Anna since his mother’s funeral two years earlier. He motioned the girl forward and she came without hesitation. He nodded to Grace and she approached as well.
“You have some of your grandmother in you.” His father placed a trembling hand on Anna’s head. “Especially around the eyes.” He raised his gaze to Grace. “Good to see you again, Grace. Wish it were under different circumstances.”
“Dad.” Her voice cracked as she leaned over Anna and gingerly embraced him. “You’re looking well.”
His father’s laughter evoked a grimace of pain but did not stifle his amusement.
“You’re sweet to say so. Delusional, but sweet.”
A moment later, the tower had begun to vibrate and now, as the eastern sky turned rosy in a predawn blush, Hector returned from his reconnaissance.
“Something’s definitely going on out there,” he sang. “Couldn’t get a good look because of the overhang, but the sound is like a million marbles being rattled in a bag.” He plucked up one of the rifles and moved to the trapdoor. “I’m going down a couple levels and look out a window. Should be able to see better. Book, mind the fort while I’m gone.”
“No problem,” he warbled unconvincingly.
“I’ll go with you, Hector,” Cho sang.
“Still got the gun?”
“No.” Cho retrieved the pistol from one of the duffel bags and with an expression of profound distaste carefully tucked it under her waistband at the small of her back.
“How long will it take to set up your device?” Andrew sang after the two were gone. He had been surreptitiously scanning the room since their arrival, looking for something impressive enough to thwart a race of malevolent titans, a bulky piece of machinery perhaps, cobbled together after years of research and covered end-to-end with a profusion of wires and knobs and glowing LED displays, something that would activate with a momentary shower of sparks before humming to life. He saw nothing of the sort. A few weapons, a couple of canvas satchels, what looked like a battered guitar case. His guitar case?
“Not long.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Nothing. One man job. Designed it that way. Too complicated for anyone but me to operate, anyway. Too dangerous. One wrong setting and…” His father pressed his fingertips to his temple and spread them outward with a “pifft” of exhaled air.
A sudden, horrible certainty struck Andrew with such force he would have toppled back had his father’s next words not yanked the thought from his head like a rotten molar.
“Has she forgiven you?”
Grace took a gulp of air, something between a gasp and a sob. Like Andrew, she knew exactly what his father was asking. He drew a deep breath of his own, and in the time it took to fill his lungs, his emotions flickered from indignation to guilt to humiliation to self-loathing and finally bitter resignation. Why not discuss it now? Wouldn’t want to face death stubbornly clinging to all their old, threadbare illusions.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“You don’t know because you’ve never asked.” Grace swiped away her tears with a thumb.
“I’ve said I’m sorry a dozen times. Do you want to hear it again? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. If I could take that day back I would.”
Anna did not look up at her parents, but she drew herself closer into her grandfather’s lap and rested her cheek against his chest. Andrew thought he heard his father grunt in pain, but he did not ease her away. Instead, he draped an arm around her shoulder and began stroking her arm. Anna reached her scarred hand up and patted his cheek.
“Saying you’re sorry isn’t the same as asking forgiveness. Oh.” Caught up in her emotions, she had spoken rather than sung the words. Now she clutched her head and slumped to the floor.
“Don’t stop singing!” Anna cried, scampering to her mother.
“Honey! Grace!” Andrew eased her up, terrified he would see a slack face and eyes rolled to the whites. Instead, he witnessed something almost as bad: his wife hitching with laughter.
“Yes,” she chortled. “Let’s all keep singing. Let’s sing our troubles away. Why not? La, la, la. You drank yourself into a stupor and let Anna get hurt. Tra, la, la. And you’ve said you’re sorry a dozen times but you’ve never asked for forgiveness. Not once. Oh no, no, no. Not a once. Not a once.”
“Grace,” he sang, and yes, wasn’t this the most fucked up musical of all time? Strike up the band and cue the stage lights because here comes the big finale. He cupped her face in his hands and forced her to look at him. “Grace, will you forgive me?”
“Yes.” she snarled. “Yes, you selfish bastard. And goddamn you for making me wait this long to tell you. I forgive you.” She ran her hand lightly down Anna’s scarred arm. “But I don’t trust you. Maybe someday if you’re serious about getting sober. Maybe. It’s the best I can do for now.”
“All I’ve wanted is a chance to prove it.”
“I trust you, Daddy.” Anna leaped into his arms, nearly bowling him over. “You saved me from the dragon at the park.”
“That’s right.” Over his daughter’s head, he mouthed, “I wasn’t drinking that day,” to Grace.
Maybe she would have snorted in disbelief, the distance between them widening into something unbridgeable. Maybe she would have recognized his sincerity and given him some indication things could still be reset between them. Hell, maybe she would have started singing the “National Anthem”. Andrew would never know. Before Grace could respond, the shooting started below.
When Little Billy caught sight of the squim pack dropping from the trees, the surge of adrenaline tingled through every pore in a wave of prickling heat. He’d been expecting an attack of some sort, but not so soon. He’d never seen bilantu active in the muted light of predawn, yet here they were, scampering across the cemetery by the dozens.
Little Billy spun in a desperate circle, looking for anything he could use as a weapon. Nothing but a fallen branch a little thicker than his wrist. He plucked it up and positioned himself between the approaching squim and the firefighter he intended to protect. At least he was finally doing something. If he died now it would be a cinematic death, the kind survivors would recount with hushed reverence years later.
The notion was actually quite invigorating. And here was Katie, suddenly at his side. No weapon in her hands, just her fists. She gave him an Amazonian smile of resigned triumph and if he could have thrown her on the ground and fucked her senseless he would have. Instead, he raised his branch and faced the enemy.
They came on.
Little Billy swung.
The squim parted around them and continued past the demolition team. In a moment, every last one had skittered over the cemetery’s north fence and disappeared, leaving the firefighters unscathed.
“Where are they going?” Katie sang in relief and puzzlement.
Little Billy knew. They were headed north to lay siege to the Sulfur Springs water tower.
“I don’t know,” he lied.
“Yes, you do. God, please let them stay safe.”
After the squim came the quintalochs. The votasin. Fidelaxes. A veritable migration of bilantu all heading north. If even a few had attacked in some coordinated manner it would have been the end of the demolition team. A single quintaloch could have taken out half a dozen. Instead, they surged around the firefighters as if they were nothing more than rocks in a stream.
“I guess they don’t consider us a threat,” Katie remarked after the initial burst of adrenalin had subsided, leaving them both shaky and deflated.
“Their mistake,” he sang, trying to sound confident.
Little Billy slipped into a post-crisis stupor, repeating his idiotic jingle over and over as the men and women of the demolition crew, singing like dwarfs returning from their mine, worked in a frenzy. It was going to be close. Damn close. But the industrial augur sank into the parched earth like a finger through meringue. What had Jason said earlier? The soil was changing the farther north they went. Less clay. More sand. Maybe that would work in their favor. Maybe…
Katie slapped his chest in alarm.
“Wrong side, wrong side!” she screamed/sang. Little Billy stared at her, the jingle looping endlessly on his lips. He shook his head.
“They’re drilling inside the circle!”
Little Billy chorused the last words without comprehension.
“We’re all inside the circle!” She jabbed upward in desperation and he finally understood.
The bubbles. Christ, there were so many of them now, orbiting ever faster, elongating into capsules as their velocity increased. They filled the air around them in an effervescent swirl, and through their undulating membranes, Little Billy glimpsed shaped gathered and waiting in a heaving, writhing mass. They were inside the circle. The entire demolition team was inside the circle! If the breach occurred before they could finish…
Precious minutes ticked away as he and Katie explained the situation to Jason, the demolition chief. The auger was hastily repositioned outside the circle and a new shaft started. But minutes wasted. Dawn was nearly upon them, the sky a pale blue haze of high clouds piling into something more substantial out in the Gulf. For the first time in months, a storm front was approaching, precipitated, perhaps, by the impending breach like water droplets condensing on cold metal.
The auger truck finished drilling and backed away. Then Little Billy glanced over his shoulder and his mounting anxiety evaporated like a puddle under a Saharan sun, replaced by the bottomless calm of total resignation.
They weren’t going to make it.
He watched a firefighter feed Trenchrite into the shaft with numb detachment. The charge was massive, at least ten times bigger than what he and Andrew had used the other night and twice as large as the one the demolition team had planted at the previous coil. It would have made a good show. But the tempo of the xalantracoil’s thrumming was now a palpitative flutter, its strobing a film-reel flicker. Through the foliage to the southeast, Little Billy could make out the shine of a neighboring coil, a brilliant pillar of light winking between branch and leaf.
“Get behind the line,” he told Katie, pointing toward the ring of fire engines. The intensely roiling air around the coil gave the impression of an over-stoked forge on the point of meltdown, although even now it gave off no heat. At the drill site, a firefighter was struggling to attach the blasting cap while shielding his eyes from the coil’s blinding glare. A colleague approached and held her coat up as a curtain.
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind.”
The firefighter gave Jason a thumbs-up and the demolition chief pulled a wireless detonator from his pocket. Waving his team back, he began tapping buttons.
“I’m not going without you,” Katie sang as the last of the demolition team darted through the cemetery gates to take up positions behind the nearest fire engine. She tugged his arm hard, nearly yanking him off his feet. “There’s nothing you can do here anyway.”
“Jason,” he called. “Time’s up.” He made a sweeping motion with his arm, pantomiming urgency, but it was all an act. Too late. Too late. Too late for us my dear.
“Damn it, Katie, go!” He pushed her toward the gates with all his strength. She staggered back, tripped over a gravestone and when down.
As the rim of the sun emerged above the horizon, the circulating distortions smeared and merged into a single sheet curving upward in an unbroken white dome. For two seconds, three, the wall remained opaque, and through the fog, a sound emerged, something like giant molars being ground together, enormous teeth gnawing bone. A hot blast of fetid air blew over them and the fog evaporated.
Still on the ground, Katie began to scream. Little Billy decided to join her.
Twenty-four
Emily returned first and his son hoisted her into the room. John tried to rise but the pain was too great and he settled back against the ladder, pounding a fist against the floor in frustration.
“Help Hector,” she sang to Booker. “He’s not going to be able to hold it off by himself.”
“What is it?” John demanded.
“Just like you said, Brutrelli times ten. It climbed in through a window. It must have scaled the outside wall. John,” Emily’s grip was a vice clamped around his bicep. “It has two heads. It has two goddamn heads!”
The vetro had read someone’s mind, Emily’s or Booker’s or Hector’s. Maybe all three. He had told them to expect Brutrelli times ten, and because they believed him and their belief had shined brightly, the vetro offalate must have folded the notion into their plans as a mocking tribute to his careless words.
“Help me to the trapdoor.” John held out his hand.
“What can you do?”
“Fire a gun.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Booker sang. He had dragged himself to the opening, rifle in hand. From below more shots rang out. Something shrieked, chittered, howled, moaned. “Worry about setting up your gizmo.” He eased himself onto the ladder with a grimace and began descending. Just before his head disappeared he turned to Andrew. “If it isn’t rusted stuck, close the hatch behind me. Don’t open it again until this is over.”
He was gone. Booker and Hector, two men who had followed him from a jail cell to a water tower, who had put their trust him, sacrificed for him, would now likely die for him. And for what? Nothing? Everything? He’d still didn’t know if any of this had or would make a damn bit of difference. At least if the two men perished below they would never learn it was all a ruse.
Andrew had been on the verge of understanding. He’d seen the bleak realization dawning in his eyes. If he hadn’t derailed his thoughts with the question about forgiveness it might have ended then, belief collapsing into a vast, black well of betrayal. He’d bought himself a few more minutes, but he would have to open the guitar case soon.
Please, he sang to anything out there that might be listening. He’d never been a man of prayer, at least not until Booker’s impromptu worship service. If you exist and you give a damn about any of this, let these extra minutes count for something.
“Help me out, here.” Andrew was struggling to close the hatch, a rusted square of metal frozen open by decades of corrosion. Straining hard enough to raise the cords on arm and neck, he managed to lift it four or five inches as the hinges howled objections. Grace and Emily joined him, Anna as well despite her mother’s warning to stay back. John shimmied his way to a standing position, intending to join them, but the effort left him winded and reeling. What kind of half-assed painkillers was Emily toting around? Their effects were decidedly less than impressive.
“On the count of three,” Andrew instructed. He gave the countdown. When they heaved, the hatch rose to perpendicular. Leaning their collective weight against the other side, they managed to force it down across the opening inch by squalling inch, the door’s hasp finally slipping over a large staple bolted to the floor.
“No lock,” Grace pointed out.
“Maybe we won’t need one,” Andrew suggested. “Took all of us to move it.”
John remembered the way the Brutrelli-thing had pounded through the jail’s infirmary door.
“We’ll need one,” Emily and John sang in unison. Emily bent to examine the staple. “I have an idea.” She went to the wall and returned with the remaining rifle held awkwardly across her chest.
“Make sure it’s unloaded,” John sang.
“How?”
He held out his hand and she presented the weapon. He pressed the magazine latch and the chambered bullets ejected, scattering across the floor with a series of metallic pings. She returned to the hatch with the rifle and managed to push the first two inches of the barrel through the staple opening.
“That’s as far as it’ll go.”
Andrew knelt and gave the butt of the rifle a shove.
“Best we can do.” He rapped the door’s plate with his knuckles. “Wish this was thicker.” He pointed to the gridding on the windows. “Wish those bars were tighter. Wouldn’t be hard for one of those floating things to squeeze through.”
Father and son exchanged looks. Together, they moved toward the balcony door through a cascade of dust and debris drifting down from the ceiling. The vibrations were intensifying, the tower shaking hard enough to bounce the grit on the floor. It was an unnerving escalation, but not physically unpleasant. It reminded John of the foot massager Lindsay had given him one year as a birthday present, used twice in a superficial display of appreciation and then discarded. The vibrations rose through his heels and calves in a warm tingle before dissipating above his knees. Why had he only used the damn thing twice?
