"c231" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)

1:37 P.M., Monday, February 21, 2000
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Halifax stretched uphill before them, rising from the water as Nate and Morgan's ferry drew closer. Morgan's spirits rose as he saw the normality of trees and church spires and the squat glass highrises of downtown stepping toward the imposing bulwarks of Halifax Citadel a quarter mile inland and what seemed hundreds of feet above them. Yet his mood turned ominous as they arrived. Up close the city was ghostly quiet. The granite fortress sat low and wide, glowering down at them as they stepped onto the icy, snow-patched dock, ants in the shadow of a boot. Tragedy had been no stranger to Halifax over the years. When the Titanic sunk, many of the bodies were buried here, in the city's cemetery. In 1917, it was the site of the world's largest non-nuclear explosion, when 400,000 tons of TNT on a munitions ship blew up in the harbor, flattening two square miles of the city and killing thousands. And just a couple of years ago a SwissAir jet out of New York en route to Geneva had crashed into the icy waters not far from the city. Haligonians then lived up to their reputation once again as friends in a storm, helpers without complaint, the unruffled bearers of the cross. A man by the Sheraton Hotel, home of the only casino in the city, swept broken glass into a huge pile as best he could given the packed snow. A ski-masked guard stood nearby with shotgun at the ready. "Move along! Move along!" the guard shouted to Morgan and Nate. The Historic Properties and other shops in the wharf area were dark and gutted. A small building that advertised hot chocolate confections was a burnt out husk; only the tantalizing sign remained. Morgan imagined some kids trying to stay warm and misoperating the propane stove. The air still smelled of smoke. If the Haligonians were taking the Y2K chaos this poorly, and with electrical power to boot, Morgan shuddered to think how the rest of the world fared. He hoped everyone else was coping better than the Haligonians this time. "C'mon," Nate said. "I heard there're some good stores on Barrington Street." He pulled his coat tighter. "There's supposed to be some kind of above-ground covered walkways." Which were closed. They could see the large windows on the nearest walkway had been shattered as well. "Could be worse," Nate said. Morgan didn't recognize the Young Frankenstein reference, and took the bait with a quizzical look. "Could be raining." They walked up one street, down another. Storefronts were smashed everywhere, the stores looted. Morgan hadn't seen the aftermath of looting up close. Bits of broken dishes, torn books, all the oddments of civilized life lay tossed about as if it had finally sunk in to the desperate thieves that coffee makers didn't matter, but wood from thousand dollar chair still burned. The public trash cans had apparently been well used. Blackened from warming fires, they were surrounded by the saddest trash among the soot: brass drawer pulls, a half-burnt hardback of The Great Gatsby, melted plastic madonnas, once swank wool suit jackets... people had tossed on presumably anything that would burn. In the distance a half-dozen people still huddled around a flickering trash-can fire. They fed it from a stack of paperbacks in a wheelbarrow. Morgan's eyes teared up. Behind each broken window, each pilfered book or watch or parka lay a human story. Someone had broken in this door here with an axe, perhaps to get a down comforter to keep his crippled mother warm. Perhaps the grocery store was closed and a mother threw a rock through this window because she needed formula for her baby. Had a man smashed this display with a golf club to get batteries for a portable radio? Morgan could understand that. He had no doubt that if he found a hundred people, he would find a hundred stories of privation, loss, anguish, and shame at acts committed because they had no choice. Yes, the city had power. The streetlights were dimly visible under the low, gray sky. A few people poked around in stores, but whether they were owners or scavengers was difficult to say; the motions were the same. With power restored, that Mr. Coffee might come in handy. But the restoration of power was not a panacea. Yet it should be! A pit formed in Morgan's stomach. The city still lay in ruins as sure as if it had been blasted by another munitions ship. Glass could be replaced, and new products manufactured, but the manufacturers themselves would have been hit as well. Everyone had tripped and fallen simultaneously. Morgan began to realize there was no "rest of the world" to help out the single devastated area as happened during a hurricane or the like. The eyes of the few passersby were sunken in, as if to say they had done unspeakable things, and expected to do more yet before the world built itself up again. An asteroid would kill more people, but would it have had any worse effect on the social and economic structure of humanity? Morgan doubted it could. Civilization was a house of cards built on the shoulders of giants, and the giants had stumbled. "Hey, looks like that mall's open up there," Nate said as they rounded a corner. Ahead and up the hill an office-building-shaped mall blazed with light. Several stories above, overhead lights shone on pristine evening dresses and bagel toasters. But on reaching it, they realized there were no people inside. No clerks, no customers. For that matter, there were few pedestrians and few cars, mostly police cruisers. This puzzled Morgan for a time as they walked the ghost town, until it occurred to him: People would still be in food and water lines, or be trudging home for the first time and dealing with their bursting pipes, relighting of furnaces, burial of pets they were forbidden to evacuate to shelters, and the other heart-wrenching, damning side-effects of six weeks without power. "Uh, maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Nate said. Their destination of Barrington Street was more of the same. Cute shops that had once been yuppie trinket sellers and cafés and little bookstores and upscale clothiers were slumped, sunken and dark-eyed, dead where they stood. "I don't exactly see anywhere to buy a coat. Steal maybe, but... Hey, what's going on over there?" Morgan pointed toward a drug store. Inside three figures struggled, two adults and a young boy. Morgan hesitated. Ordinarily he'd have lunged right in. But when the rule of law breaks down, what was the better course? Every man (or child) for himself? Or was civilization defined as those times when neighbor helped neighbor? Morgan felt sure he could hear Desiree's voice saying, "I wish we could do something." Nate seemed in a similar quandary; or else less inclined toward the same definition of civilization. Morgan nudged his arm. "Let's go." Nate hesitated, then followed. They heard the boy screaming as they approached. He had a kitchen knife in one hand but one of the men—college kids, perhaps, in parkas, turtlenecks, and jeans—held the boy's arm. Morgan wasn't sure exactly how to help, and decided on the Weird Approach. He'd often heard that acting extremely eccentric was a way to get out of a jam, and had always wanted to try it. So he started singing at the top of his voice, "For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow." "What are you doing?" Nate hissed. Still at the top of his voice, he replied, "I'm singing! Which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny!" The trio stopped to look, momentarily forgetting their scuffle. The kid recovered first, and slashed across the hand of the man holding him. The man screamed out. "Yo, Johnny, there y'are!" Nate ad-libbed. "Momma's real mad you run out on yer birthday party. I had to take Duane here's gun away cuz he was having one of his bad days." Nate patted his side as if he had the gun there. "But if pa catches you with your no-good friends here again he's liable to shoot the lot of ya." Morgan smiled a goofy grin. "Shoot the lot of ya," he repeated. Talk of guns ought to at least make these guys nervous. In fact, they fled, throwing "fucking creeps" over their shoulder. The boy stood still for a second. His eyes darted between Morgan, Nate, and a couple liters of motor oil on the floor. "Need those for my dad," he said uncertainly. "He's a machinist. Can't work without 'em." Suddenly the boy scooped up the oil and ran like hell. Perhaps, Morgan reflected in a moment of clarity, because two cops were walking toward them with guns drawn. "Thank God you showed up, officers! Those—" "Hands behind your heads! Now!" an officer shouted.

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Chapter 23.1

1:37 P.M., Monday, February 21, 2000
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Halifax stretched uphill before them, rising from the water as Nate and Morgan's ferry drew closer. Morgan's spirits rose as he saw the normality of trees and church spires and the squat glass highrises of downtown stepping toward the imposing bulwarks of Halifax Citadel a quarter mile inland and what seemed hundreds of feet above them. Yet his mood turned ominous as they arrived. Up close the city was ghostly quiet. The granite fortress sat low and wide, glowering down at them as they stepped onto the icy, snow-patched dock, ants in the shadow of a boot. Tragedy had been no stranger to Halifax over the years. When the Titanic sunk, many of the bodies were buried here, in the city's cemetery. In 1917, it was the site of the world's largest non-nuclear explosion, when 400,000 tons of TNT on a munitions ship blew up in the harbor, flattening two square miles of the city and killing thousands. And just a couple of years ago a SwissAir jet out of New York en route to Geneva had crashed into the icy waters not far from the city. Haligonians then lived up to their reputation once again as friends in a storm, helpers without complaint, the unruffled bearers of the cross. A man by the Sheraton Hotel, home of the only casino in the city, swept broken glass into a huge pile as best he could given the packed snow. A ski-masked guard stood nearby with shotgun at the ready. "Move along! Move along!" the guard shouted to Morgan and Nate. The Historic Properties and other shops in the wharf area were dark and gutted. A small building that advertised hot chocolate confections was a burnt out husk; only the tantalizing sign remained. Morgan imagined some kids trying to stay warm and misoperating the propane stove. The air still smelled of smoke. If the Haligonians were taking the Y2K chaos this poorly, and with electrical power to boot, Morgan shuddered to think how the rest of the world fared. He hoped everyone else was coping better than the Haligonians this time. "C'mon," Nate said. "I heard there're some good stores on Barrington Street." He pulled his coat tighter. "There's supposed to be some kind of above-ground covered walkways." Which were closed. They could see the large windows on the nearest walkway had been shattered as well. "Could be worse," Nate said. Morgan didn't recognize the Young Frankenstein reference, and took the bait with a quizzical look. "Could be raining." They walked up one street, down another. Storefronts were smashed everywhere, the stores looted. Morgan hadn't seen the aftermath of looting up close. Bits of broken dishes, torn books, all the oddments of civilized life lay tossed about as if it had finally sunk in to the desperate thieves that coffee makers didn't matter, but wood from thousand dollar chair still burned. The public trash cans had apparently been well used. Blackened from warming fires, they were surrounded by the saddest trash among the soot: brass drawer pulls, a half-burnt hardback of The Great Gatsby, melted plastic madonnas, once swank wool suit jackets... people had tossed on presumably anything that would burn. In the distance a half-dozen people still huddled around a flickering trash-can fire. They fed it from a stack of paperbacks in a wheelbarrow. Morgan's eyes teared up. Behind each broken window, each pilfered book or watch or parka lay a human story. Someone had broken in this door here with an axe, perhaps to get a down comforter to keep his crippled mother warm. Perhaps the grocery store was closed and a mother threw a rock through this window because she needed formula for her baby. Had a man smashed this display with a golf club to get batteries for a portable radio? Morgan could understand that. He had no doubt that if he found a hundred people, he would find a hundred stories of privation, loss, anguish, and shame at acts committed because they had no choice. Yes, the city had power. The streetlights were dimly visible under the low, gray sky. A few people poked around in stores, but whether they were owners or scavengers was difficult to say; the motions were the same. With power restored, that Mr. Coffee might come in handy. But the restoration of power was not a panacea. Yet it should be! A pit formed in Morgan's stomach. The city still lay in ruins as sure as if it had been blasted by another munitions ship. Glass could be replaced, and new products manufactured, but the manufacturers themselves would have been hit as well. Everyone had tripped and fallen simultaneously. Morgan began to realize there was no "rest of the world" to help out the single devastated area as happened during a hurricane or the like. The eyes of the few passersby were sunken in, as if to say they had done unspeakable things, and expected to do more yet before the world built itself up again. An asteroid would kill more people, but would it have had any worse effect on the social and economic structure of humanity? Morgan doubted it could. Civilization was a house of cards built on the shoulders of giants, and the giants had stumbled. "Hey, looks like that mall's open up there," Nate said as they rounded a corner. Ahead and up the hill an office-building-shaped mall blazed with light. Several stories above, overhead lights shone on pristine evening dresses and bagel toasters. But on reaching it, they realized there were no people inside. No clerks, no customers. For that matter, there were few pedestrians and few cars, mostly police cruisers. This puzzled Morgan for a time as they walked the ghost town, until it occurred to him: People would still be in food and water lines, or be trudging home for the first time and dealing with their bursting pipes, relighting of furnaces, burial of pets they were forbidden to evacuate to shelters, and the other heart-wrenching, damning side-effects of six weeks without power. "Uh, maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Nate said. Their destination of Barrington Street was more of the same. Cute shops that had once been yuppie trinket sellers and cafés and little bookstores and upscale clothiers were slumped, sunken and dark-eyed, dead where they stood. "I don't exactly see anywhere to buy a coat. Steal maybe, but... Hey, what's going on over there?" Morgan pointed toward a drug store. Inside three figures struggled, two adults and a young boy. Morgan hesitated. Ordinarily he'd have lunged right in. But when the rule of law breaks down, what was the better course? Every man (or child) for himself? Or was civilization defined as those times when neighbor helped neighbor? Morgan felt sure he could hear Desiree's voice saying, "I wish we could do something." Nate seemed in a similar quandary; or else less inclined toward the same definition of civilization. Morgan nudged his arm. "Let's go." Nate hesitated, then followed. They heard the boy screaming as they approached. He had a kitchen knife in one hand but one of the men—college kids, perhaps, in parkas, turtlenecks, and jeans—held the boy's arm. Morgan wasn't sure exactly how to help, and decided on the Weird Approach. He'd often heard that acting extremely eccentric was a way to get out of a jam, and had always wanted to try it. So he started singing at the top of his voice, "For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow." "What are you doing?" Nate hissed. Still at the top of his voice, he replied, "I'm singing! Which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny!" The trio stopped to look, momentarily forgetting their scuffle. The kid recovered first, and slashed across the hand of the man holding him. The man screamed out. "Yo, Johnny, there y'are!" Nate ad-libbed. "Momma's real mad you run out on yer birthday party. I had to take Duane here's gun away cuz he was having one of his bad days." Nate patted his side as if he had the gun there. "But if pa catches you with your no-good friends here again he's liable to shoot the lot of ya." Morgan smiled a goofy grin. "Shoot the lot of ya," he repeated. Talk of guns ought to at least make these guys nervous. In fact, they fled, throwing "fucking creeps" over their shoulder. The boy stood still for a second. His eyes darted between Morgan, Nate, and a couple liters of motor oil on the floor. "Need those for my dad," he said uncertainly. "He's a machinist. Can't work without 'em." Suddenly the boy scooped up the oil and ran like hell. Perhaps, Morgan reflected in a moment of clarity, because two cops were walking toward them with guns drawn. "Thank God you showed up, officers! Those—" "Hands behind your heads! Now!" an officer shouted.


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