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At nine a.m., when the people still in the city who still had jobs they still showed up for would be at work, Markovic swarmed out of the broken sliding glass door, barely pausing to note that he was effortlessly flying through the air, a dense cloud of insects—well, something like insects, anyway—that sometimes formed itself into the shape of a man. He raced down Park Avenue, then took Madison Avenue to Broadway, always heading downtown, south. He could have flown above the buildings but he wanted to assess the state of the city.
The city had already changed. He saw half a dozen looted stores, the evidence of fires, trash strewn in the street. A burned-out taxi sat in front of a tapas restaurant. A water main had broken and no one had y
et fixed it, so that half a block of Broadway was under six inches of water. Most of the traffic lights he passed were in emergency flashing mode, which would have made traffic impossible but for the fact that there were fewer than the usual number of cars or trucks on the streets, and what traffic there was all had a single direction: away.
Markovic zoomed on, quite enjoying himself, until he reached his goal.
New York’s City Hall was an early nineteenth-century building in French Renaissance style, a grand old edifice. It was big, but dwarfed by the even larger Tweed Courthouse behind it, which housed the Department of Education for the city.
Should he? No, just City Hall. No need to ruin the day of educators. The time would come when he’d need people like that to teach his laws to a generation of children who would grow up knowing that Markovic—Vector—ruled their world.
Markovic swarmed right in the front door, flowed past the security detail, split himself into a main group and three smaller swarms, and spread out through the building.
Ten minutes later, most of New York City’s government were screaming in agony, their bodies devoured and yet never to be consumed by disease. Only the mayor was missing, which was a disappointment, but he would get to her. People tried to run, but he was too swift. They barricaded themselves in offices and pushed furniture against the doors. Silly fools: there had never been a door an insect could not get past.
One Police Plaza was just a block away, an awful, putty-colored cube. In minutes the police chief, his aides, and hundreds of cops and clerical support were in agony.
One last target. The Javits Federal Building, which housed the FBI and Homeland Security, was conveniently in the same neighborhood. Markovic struck here with extra relish, in light of what the Feds had done at the Pine Barrens. Try to kill me? Hah. Go to hell.
Literally.
In just under an hour, Markovic had infected hundreds of federal employees and crippled the leadership of the city.
New York City was without any functional government.
It only remained for Markovic to publicly inform the citizens of New York that they were no longer citizens, but subjects. His subjects, to whom he would dole out protection or pain, depending on how willingly they submitted.
One small problem. If he meant to summon the media to witness his statement, he would need to be able to make a phone call, and he had no fingers. But he solved that problem by finding the Public Affairs office and the woman who presumably ran it. She was in her office, hiding under her desk, as yet untouched by his insect hitmen.
“If you obey me, I will not harm you,” he said in his reedy voice.
“Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me! I have two little children!” She actually had the framed photo clutched to her chest and turned it toward him. She wept pitifully as snot ran down her lip.
“Obey me and live, you and your children.”
He told her to call the New York Times and CNN. That would be enough to start the ball rolling. She made the calls, and Markovic left her unharmed. He was, after all, a man of his word.
An hour later Markovic “stood” on the steps of City Hall, facing dozens of cameras and a press corps doing their best not to wet themselves in sheer terror. Everyone by now knew what Vector could do.
“I have a statement to make. I will not answer questions,” Markovic said. “I am Vector. I was a successful businessman when the asteroid strike came. The government tried to kill me, along with many others similarly affected. That’s not some whimsical exaggeration; they drove us to a field in New Jersey and gunned us down.”
He let that sink in for a moment, though of course the whole world had seen video of the Pine Barrens by now.
“I died. But, because of the rock, I was reborn, as you see me. And today, on behalf of all who have been failed or harmed by government forces, I have incapacitated City Hall, One Police Plaza, and the Federal Building. The pain they inflicted on me and on innocent people is now inflicted on them. Justice, I call it. Justice!”
The reporters did not seem convinced, but no matter, the common people were credulous fools who would believe what they needed to believe. Bizarre as his claim was, there would be many prepared to believe that he had indeed doled out justice. “As of now, the people run this city . . . with me as their sovereign. Regular people minding their own business have nothing to fear from me. But let us be clear: New York City is mine. And if the government in Albany or in Washington, DC, comes after me, no one will be safe from Vector.”
It was petty, Markovic knew, but he enjoyed the thought of the society toffs and the upstart new money all suddenly realizing that maybe, just maybe, they should have welcomed him into New York society instead of treating him as a joke or a pariah.
“And one other thing. I know that others have been affected by the rock. Some of you will have developed powers. You are not safe from the government, or their willing tools, the vigilante thugs of the so-called Rockborn Gang. Come to me. Join me! Join me now at Grand Central Terminal, and I will care for you. Your only safety lies in joining me.”
Rockborn Gang? Meet Vector’s Gang.
CHAPTER 25
Of Course It’s a Trap
“WINDOWS AND DOORS still all shut tight,” Cruz reported, somewhat breathless after having raced around the armory with the janitorial crew, double-checking that every way into the building was sealed.
