6
It looked as if the apocalypse was still a go.
Carmen Farooq-Lane stood in one of London Heathrow’s infernally busy terminals, her head tilted back to look at the gate announcements. People flowed around her in the stop-start way humans did in airports and train stations, their journeys more stream of consciousness than logic. Most people didn’t care for airports; they were in survival mode. Id mode. They became the purest, most unfiltered versions of themselves. Panicked, rambling, erratic. But Farooq-Lane liked them. She liked schedules, systems, things in their place, holidays with specific celebratory rituals, games where people took turns. Before the Moderators, airports had represented the pleasant thrill of plans coming to fruition. New places seen. New foods eaten, new people met.
She was good at airports.
Now she was a vision of professional loveliness as she waited, poised in a diffuse spotlight, her pale linen suit impeccable; her small, expensive, wheeled suitcase spotless; her long, dark hair pulled into a softly braided updo; her absurdly long eyelashes lowered over her dark eyes. Her boots were new; she’d bought them from an airport store and thrown out the bloodstained pair in the ladies’ room. She looked flawless.
Inside her, however, a smaller Carmen Farooq-Lane screamed and beat against the doors.
Nathan was dead.
Nathan was dead.
She’d had him killed.
Of course, the Moderators hadn’t said they were going to kill him, but she’d known there wasn’t a prison for people like Nathan. The only way to securely imprison Zeds was to never let them sleep—never let them dream. Impossible, of course.
I expected more complexity from you, Carmen.
Her brother had earned his death sentence, several times over. But still. She grieved the memory of who she’d thought he was, before she’d found out what he’d done. The heart was so foolish, she thought. Her head knew so much better.
If only it had actually stopped the apocalypse.
A flight to Berlin appeared on the board; she’d be up next. Chicago. It was morning here. Middle of the night there. Ten hours from now, she’d be climbing the stairs to her row house, groceries in hand, bag slung over her shoulder, steeling herself for the long task of trying to insert herself back in her old life. Back to her own bed, to a commute and a day job, her friends and what was left of her family. She’d done what she’d promised the Moderators she’d do, and now she’d earned her freedom.
But how was she supposed to manage clients’ financial futures if she knew there might not be a future? How was she supposed to go back to her old life when she was no longer the Carmen Farooq-Lane who’d been living it?
Beside her, a man sneezed gustily. He searched his pockets unsuccessfully for a tissue. Farooq-Lane had been using plenty and had just restocked for another tumultuous day. She produced one from her bag; he accepted it gratefully. He seemed about to use it as an excuse for conversation, but her phone rang, and she turned away to answer.
“Are you still in the terminal?” Lock asked.
“Just about to board,” Farooq-Lane said.
“Going home.”
Farooq-Lane didn’t answer this one.
“Look,” he rumbled, “I’ll cut right to it. I know you’ve done what we asked, I know you’re finished, but you’re good at this like no one else is.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Not the breaking-things part. The finding-things part. People like you. That’s important. We need you. Do you think you could help us with one more?”
One more. Was it really one more? Did it matter? It was as if some part of her had been hoping or anticipating that he would ask, because she heard herself say yes before she even really considered. That heart-head dissonance again. She wanted to be done, but she just couldn’t be until the world was safe.
“I was hoping you might say that,” Lock said. “Nikolenko is there with a package for you and new flight information. Meet her at the Costa.”
As her gate information appeared on the board, Farooq-Lane left it behind and navigated through the throngs of people until she found Nikolenko, a short, stone-faced woman with short, stone-colored hair. Nikolenko waited beside an angular young man in a T-shirt, suit coat, and tiny round glasses. He was extraordinarily tall and extraordinarily hunched. Elbows, knees, and Adam’s apple were all prominent. His shoulder-length blond hair was tucked behind his ears. He looked a little like a young undertaker or, with those skeletal features, like one of the cadavers.
Nikolenko handed him some money. “Go get a coffee.”
He looked at it as if he did not want a coffee, but people did what Nikolenko said, so off he shuffled.
Nikolenko handed Farooq-Lane an envelope. “That’s your ticket and the address of where you’re staying.”
“Lock said there’d be a package?”
“He’s the package,” Nikolenko said, jerking her chin to where the kid stood in line.
Farooq-Lane didn’t understand.
“He’s the Visionary,” Nikolenko said. “He’s going with you.”
Oh.
The Visionary was why they knew the world was going to end. The Visionaries. This kid was only the most recent of them, the second Visionary the Moderators had worked with since Farooq-Lane had started up with them. She didn’t know how many there had been before. Each of the Visionaries experienced intensely vivid and detailed premonitions, specifically focused on Zeds and other Visionaries.
Also, specifically focused on the end of the world.
Each of the Visionaries spoke of an apocalypse brought about in the same way, with starving, unquenchable fire. Dreamed unquenchable fire. Farooq-Lane didn’t know exactly how long the Moderators had been looking for the Zed who would dream this fire into being, but she knew that at some point an intergovernmental entity had been quietly formed. Moderators came from all corners of the world. Some of them were convinced by one of the Visionary’s predictions. Some of them were convinced by knowing a Zed and what they could do firsthand. And one of them was convinced by a need to prove to the other Moderators that she wasn’t complicit in her brother’s crimes.
Nathan had been their best lead so far. They already knew he wanted to see the world burn.
But his death hadn’t stopped the Visionary’s fiery prophecies.
Farooq-Lane eyed the Visionary as he counted out money at the cashier. “Just flying on an ordinary plane?” she asked Nikolenko. “Is that safe?”
“He’s been in control for months.”
Farooq-Lane couldn’t identify the feeling inside herself, but it wasn’t one of the good ones.
“I didn’t know I was going to have to take care of a teenager,” Farooq-Lane said. She hadn’t even known the Visionary was a teenager; she’d only ever seen descriptions of his visions. Farooq-Lane wasn’t very maternal. Life was messy until you were in your twenties, she felt, and she preferred to forget all her previous ages.
“He’s not difficult to handle,” Nikolenko assured her. “He just does what you tell him.”
That didn’t make it any better. “Why is he coming with me? I did fine with the descriptions before.”
“He’s close to done. He’s getting fragmented. It’ll be easier for you to talk the visions out with him.”