The End of the World

Chris had a hybrid scooter he used to get around town when he didn’t want to ride the subway. He had no choice this morning; the trains weren’t running. The streets were clogged with ambulances and police cars. At Lafayette, which a few blocks north turned into Park Avenue, he watched as a retinue of twenty military vehicles tooled past. Soldiers sat in the rear of each one, outfitted in orange Racal suits and holding what looked like plasma rifles.

It was eighty blocks uptown, and before he’d gone ten Chris had to turn off Park to avoid the roadblocks. Before long he had gone far enough north that smoke from the fires started burning his eyes. Twice cops reached out for him as he passed, but he easily swerved away from them. Turned constantly away from Fifth Avenue, at one point he went as far east as First Avenue, where the traffic still moved north and south, albeit slowly. When he hit 90^th Street, he turned west again. The Met was on 82^nd. At one turn he saw the Guggenheim, just six blocks north of the Met, wreathed in smoke.

Ash had begun falling, covering everything with a layer of gray dust. The sun was hazy overhead and everything took on a strange twilight cast. He was still three blocks east of Fifth, where he could see a streaming river of police, military and ambulance vehicles heading north toward Mt. Sinai Hospital. Crowds pressing close for a view were kept at bay by police in respirators, holding riot shields.

He made his way to Madison Avenue, just one block east of Fifth. He turned left to avoid a crowd pressing against the barricade at the intersection, zipped down an alley, emerging just a stone’s throw from Fifth Avenue. The crowds were thick here, and there was as great deal of jostling. He pushed his way through and eased the bike out into Fifth Avenue. On his right, the Guggenheim’s conch shell swirls billowed smoke. Further north, Mt. Sinai was ringed with fire trucks and green military vehicles. Gunfire echoed off the tall buildings. A long line of policemen with clear plastic shields trotted past Chris toward the hospital.

Chris turned left. His stomach flipped in horror. The Met was belching flames from several upper story windows. Fire licked up the front façade. The street was a maze of fire trucks, criss-crossed fire hoses, firemen, and police, who ducked objects thrown by people from high balconies in the apartment building across the street, which was also on fire. Cops opened fire on a balcony far above, where a man was holding an old holo projector over his head, preparing the toss it onto the crowd below. He was hit and stumbled, and the HP fell fifteen stories, impacting a police cruiser squarely on the hood, sending shards of glass flying and knocking a dozen bystanders to the ground.

At that point, someone began shooting at the police. Everyone dove for cover. The crowd around Chris swirled, people screaming. He was shoved against a building. An armored troop carrier disgorged a dozen S.W.A.T. cops, who stormed the apartment building doors. The policemen who had been guarding the intersection near Chris turned and trotted toward the apartments.

Chris walked out into the street. The apartment building opposite the Met was being riddled with bullets. The fusillade was deafening. He took another step and when no one stopped him, he sprinted across the street, diving into a wall of shrubbery. He burst out the other side, saw no one was chasing him, and ran down the grassy slope toward the Loop, the narrow asphalt road which ran past the rear of the museum.

Coming around a curve, he stopped. Ahead of him there were a number of police cars blocking the Loop, but the cops were all turned toward the noise on Fifth. Chris ducked behind a tree. The north side of the museum  was the Egyptian wing, and the Dendur Temple stood behind a great wall of glass. There was a small door there, set back into an alcove. It was his best option, and he raced up the lawn toward the building, keeping bushes and trees between him and the gawking policemen on the Loop.

He ran into the alcove, skidding to a stop in front of a glass door. He cupped his hands around his eyes and squinted through the tinted glass. The Dendur Temple, a squarish collection of pitted and eroded sandstone, filled the immense, tall-ceilinged room. He grabbed the aluminum door handle. Locked. He looked around. A river stone the size of a volley ball sat at his feet. The guards used it as a door stop when they ate lunch outside. He hefted the rock overhead, shut his eyes, and slammed it against the glass door.

The rock went through the door, taking him with it. He tumbled over the panic bar, rolling across the carpet. He got to his feet, dazed, his nostrils flaring. Smoke? He looked up. Tendrils of blue smoke curled across the ceiling. In breaking the door, he’d caused a rush of air, further fanning flames in the museum. Suddenly, the fire sprinklers sputtered to life, momentarily blinding him with ice-cold water.

He sloshed around the temple and through the gallery entrance. To his right, through a mesh security gate, he saw firemen far down the hall battling flames in the museum lobby. The air was thick with smoke. It would be only a matter of minutes before the entire wing was in flames. He took the broad stairway down three steps at a time. At the bottom, the normally secure double metal doors were ajar. The firemen must have overridden the security system. Before him was a bank of elevators, the doors standing open, inoperable. He raced toward the corner stairwell.

Three stories down, he burst into his offices, looking around. Nothing here mattered. All data files were in the museum’s secure vaults, protected from just this event. Whatever else remained would be sodden ash in a few hours anyway. There was only one thing he needed to save.

* * *

The stairwell was dark, the red emergency lights offering little illumination. Chris held onto the slippery handrail. He’d fallen twice already. He took another step and was ankle-deep in water. Another, then another, and he found the landing. The water was at his knees. He had no idea the sprinklers had been on that long. He hauled the door open and stepped into the lowest sub-basement. Occasional fluorescent lights flickered far down a long, dark corridor. Exposed water pipes groaned overhead. Water coursed down the walls, sprayed from air ducts, and dripped from light fixtures. Chris waded down the hallway.

He finally found himself in front of two huge stage doors stenciled STORAGE. Like the doors upstairs, they were slightly ajar, the security pad glowing a faint green. Chris squeezed into the cavernous, dark room. The emergency lighting was out; sparks shorted from fixtures high overhead. The only illumination was the thin slice of red emergency light from out in the corridor. The water had risen to mid-thigh. As the lowest room in the museum, this place would be a giant swimming pool soon.

Chris squeezed back through the doors, which were being pushed closed by the water flooding the basement. If they shut when he was inside, he’d have a helluva time getting out. He went to the guard station. After searching several drawers, he found a flashlight and flicked the button. It was dead. Disgusted, he tossed it aside.

Reaching deep inside the same drawer, he felt something and withdrew it. A pack of cigarettes. He smiled. Cigarettes had been illegal in New York for fifteen years. He reached into the drawer again hopefully and his fingers grazed a flattened cylinder. He snagged it and pulled it out. A lighter. It took him several tries before the tiny flame ignited. Breathing thanks to the dumb guard who didn’t believe in cancer, he pushed back into the storage area, slogging down the darkened aisles, the lighter held high overhead A number of cardboard boxes had dislodged from lower shelves and floated in the freezing, rising water. He pushed them aside and pressed forward. A large object blocked his way, a robot lift, frozen in place when the power failed, its forks held high overhead.

He slid by the lift and made his way to the end of the aisle. Turning right, he came to another door labeled COLD STORAGE. His heart sank. It was shut tightly. He stowed the lighter and pulled on the handle with both hands, cracking the door slightly. In total darkness, he felt water rushing past his legs, pouring into the cold storage room. He managed to pry it open enough to slip inside. The water pressure slammed the door shut behind him. He found himself in only knee-deep water; it was somehow getting into the room in other ways.

He pushed past row after row of stainless steel cabinets, noting that none of the drawer status diodes shone green. The power was completely out down here. Raising the lighter, he finally found the right aisle and stopped before the drawer containing the alabaster jar. He grasped the handle and pulled. It slid slowly open.

With no free hand to hold the lighter, he groped around in the dark. The lozenge-shaped cryogenic container stood on one flattened end. The regulator was covered with a layer of frost. He felt for the clasps which secured the lozenge halves together. They were undone. He lifted the top off, his heart hammering. He flicked the lighter, illuminating the area with a dull yellow light. The container was empty. The canopic jar, along with its precious cargo, was gone.

Chris started toward the next aisle, where the mummy was stored. The lighter flickered--it was nearly out of fuel. As he turned the corner, something large hunched just beyond the circle of light. Chris stopped. "Who is it?" he called. The shape did not move. "What are you doing here?" he said, his voice trembling.

It took every ounce of courage he possessed to take a step forward. When he did, the dark form resolved into an extended drawer. Water lapped at its sides, making it look like it was floating. As he passed, he noticed the number. B-36. It was the vault he’d been looking for. He held the lighter up and peered into the drawer.

It was empty.