“Thank you,” muttered Donnell.
Machico ignored him, keeping his eyes focused on me. “I’ve been watching you closely for years, Blaze. I thought you’d make a good officer, because you were intelligent, loyal, and caring, but I didn’t know if you had the extra qualities a future alliance leader would need.”
He paused. “What happened on the roof was fascinating. Julien went rogue, Luther stood there in total indecision, while Aaron waited for someone else to take the lead. You were the one who took charge of the situation, Blaze, and you used exactly the right words. ‘I won’t let you shame us by murdering prisoners of war.’”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have been so surprised by that. Donnell fought with his songs for years before he formed the Earth Resistance and started fighting with weapons instead. It makes sense that his daughter would know how to fight with words as well.”
He shrugged. “That moment on the roof convinced me you’d make a far better leader than any one of Julien, Luther and Aaron, but you’re right that this is a bad time to start arguments over having a female officer. I wouldn’t have risked it if there wasn’t another factor involved. We need you as an officer right now, Blaze, because you were in London when it burned.”
His words scared me. “London burned six years ago. Why does that matter now?”
“London was abandoned in 2382,” said Machico. “Nineteen years later, firestorms swept across it. New York was abandoned in 2389. The firestorms are due to hit here next summer.”
I was on the edge of panic now. “What are you talking about?”
“Machico got unreasonably worried about the number of fires last summer,” said Donnell. “I kept telling him it was natural to have more fires in such hot, dry weather, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Those fires didn’t happen just because of the hot summer,” said Machico. “I’ve talked to the people who came from London. The number of small fires kept increasing for several years, and then there were a whole rash of them in the summer of 2400. Things went quiet again in the winter, but then the massive firestorm hit in the summer of 2401. The same pattern is happening here.”
My head blurred, and images from six years ago mixed with the present. Smoke and flames were all around me, but the burning buildings were those of New York not London.
“We must leave New York this spring,” said Machico. “I’ve been warning Donnell about this for months now. He hasn’t been taking the firestorm threat seriously, but I know you will, Blaze. We need you as an officer because you’ll believe in the danger of the coming firestorm, and you’ll find the words to convince Donnell and the others.”
“I’m already convinced we have to leave New York,” said Donnell. “With every year that passes, more of the old supplies go rotten from damp, or are gnawed by rats, and the falling stars become a bigger threat. I accept we have to start planning a move to a new location, probably somewhere upriver, but it won’t be easy to find suitable buildings that are still in good repair and have solar power.”
“It’s not enough to start planning a move upriver that will happen in two or three or five years’ time,” said Machico. “We must move this spring, and we have to leave the New York area entirely. Ideally, we should head south for milder winters. Find somewhere deep in the countryside, with a lake or river so we can still hunt wildfowl and go fishing, but with fields where we can grow proper crops as well. Think how good it would be to have bread again.”
He leaned forward eagerly. “The problem with trying to head south has always been that the fortifications round the citizens’ settlements block off a whole swathe of countryside in that direction, and seven hundred people can’t sneak alongside Fence without being noticed and attacked. Thaddeus Wallam-Crane the Eighth and his friends are the answer to that problem, because we can trade them in exchange for safe passage.”
“Trading the off-worlders would be an advantage,” said Donnell. “Getting safely round the edge of Fence would open up a lot of new options for us, but it doesn’t outweigh the dangers of a hurried move. We should spend at least one year, and preferably two, preparing for this.”
Machico thought New York was going to burn like London. Donnell didn’t believe him. I had a gut feeling that Machico was right, but Donnell would think that was just because I was scared of fire. We needed hard evidence rather than opinions here, and we didn’t have … Yes, we did!
“Other cities have been abandoned as long as London,” I said. “Tad has access to all the information on the Earth data net. He can tell us if those other cities went up in flames.”
Donnell and Machico exchanged glances. “Get Tad,” said Donnell. “Don’t tell him what it’s about though. I don’t want him making up lies about fires to encourage us to rush him over to Fence.”
I hurried off to fetch Tad. I’d left the off-worlders locked in my rooms, and they’d bolted the door, so I had to wait for them to open it. I’d been too distracted to pay attention to the room when I took them down to breakfast, but now I noticed they’d folded up their bedding, and stacked it in obsessively neat piles in a corner of the room.
Phoenix saw me looking at the bedding. “We tidied up,” she said nervously.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry I snapped at you about that earlier. I’m not used to sharing my rooms with other people.”
“Tad has told us all about what happened on the roof,” said Braden. “We understand you were taking a huge risk sheltering us in your own rooms. We’re very grateful to you.”
“Donnell’s back in charge now,” I said. “He wants to talk to Tad.”
The three off-worlders exchanged panicky looks. “Is he going to throw me off the roof?” asked Tad.
“No, nothing like that,” I said. “He just wants you to give him some information on what’s been happening over the last few years.”
“Just answer his questions, Tad,” said Phoenix. “Don’t say anything that gets us into more trouble.”
“I’ll try not to,” said Tad.
Two minutes later we were in Donnell’s rooms. Donnell dragged another chair into the circle. Tad sat down, but frowned at Machico.
“What happened to your face?” he asked.
“You mean the eye?” Machico pointed at it. “Donnell punched me.”
Tad looked stunned. “But … Why?”
“I was making the point that he should consult me before taking drastic actions,” said Donnell, “especially when those actions put my daughter in danger.”
“Please don’t look so shocked, Tad,” said Machico, in a cheerful voice. “You know the Earth Resistance was a group of freedom fighters prepared to use violence to promote their cause. The first thing you saw when you arrived was Donnell punching someone in one of the other divisions. You shouldn’t be surprised that we throw the odd punch at each other as well.”
“We’ve more urgent things to discuss than my leadership style,” said Donnell. “Tad, I want to know what’s been happening in the other cities.”
Tad’s eyes started focusing on invisible objects. “They’ve all been abandoned except for Eden in Earth Africa. There are some off-world working parties there, maintaining the Earth data net and the …”
“Eden was the last city built on Earth,” interrupted Donnell. “One of your family’s pet projects before the invention of interstellar portals. I’m not interested in Eden. I’m interested in what happened to the older cities after the last of the citizens left.”
“There’s not much information,” said Tad. “I’m seeing a couple of reports of gangs of criminals leaving cities and trying to take over citizens’ settlements. There’ve been a few museum retrieval missions. One to Paris Coeur last year, trying to track down some missing paintings.”
Donnell gave Machico a pointed look. “Paris Coeur was abandoned about the same time as London, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Tad. “You already know London burned in 2401. There are reports from nearby settlem
ents about the fire. The images look utterly terrifying. There’s one of the night sky lit up with … No, sorry, that’s not London. The image came up because of a link about fires. It’s actually an image of a massive fire in Lagos, Earth Africa, in 2400.”
“We had to pull our people out of Lagos because of flooding in 2380,” said Machico. “There were still some citizens there then. When was it finally abandoned?”
“2381,” said Tad.
“The year before London was abandoned,” said Machico, in a pointed voice.
Donnell ignored him. “Anything about Dublin?”
“There’s a settlement very close to Dublin. They don’t report any problems with criminals. They send parties into the city for supplies sometimes.”
Donnell laughed. “So the respectable citizens go scavenging too these days.”
“What about New Tokyo?” asked Machico.
“Lots of fire images again. There are lots of reports of minor fires in abandoned cities, but only four with the really huge ones. London, New Tokyo, Lagos, Sydney.”
Donnell stood up. “Those names … In 2375, the Earth Resistance attempted to occupy all five of the United Earth Regional Parliament complexes. Five buildings in five cities on five continents. London, New Tokyo, Lagos, Sydney, New York. You’re telling me that all four of the other cities have gone up in firestorms? No other cities, just those four?”
“Yes,” said Tad. “Let me …”
Machico was on his feet now too. “Is it always the same gap in time? Nineteen years after the city was abandoned?”
“Minimum elapsed time between city being abandoned and firestorm is seventeen years eleven months. Maximum is twenty years two months.” Tad snapped out the words. “Please let me try to work out why it’s just those cities.”
There was grim silence for the next few minutes. New York was abandoned the summer before I was born. We were already in the danger period.
“It has to be the power grid,” said Tad at last. “The United Earth Regional Parliament complexes included a lot of power and water conservation features, and the grid networks of their cities were upgraded to use a new, more efficient design as well. It had a power reservoir system to average out demand. That stored excess power in buffers to …”
He tugged at his hair. “I don’t know how to explain this simply.”
“Power reservoir,” I repeated. “We have a water tank on the roof. When we use water, the level goes down. When it rains, the level goes up again.”
“Yes,” said Tad. “It’s not quite the same thing, but your parallel works. When people abandoned the city, the authorities shut down the water supply and the power grid. Nobody was using power any longer, but it was still arriving in the power reservoir system.”
Machico frowned. “How? Where was this power coming from? Nobody would send power into an empty city.”
“There’d be no power coming in from outside the city,” said Tad, “but there’d be solar power from a lot of the buildings like this one.”
“If we don’t use any water,” I said, “and it keeps raining, our water tank doesn’t just overflow, the spare water starts going down a pipe to the drains.”
Tad’s eyes did their rapid focusing thing again. “The power reservoir system had an overflow safety system too. I think what happened in those four cities was that the overflow system failed. The equivalent thing with your water tank would be the overflow pipe getting blocked so there’s a flood.”
“There were warning signs in London,” said Machico. “The number of random fires increased.”
“That would make sense,” said Tad. “The power overflow system has lots of sections. If one of those breaks down, there’s likely to be a power surge that starts a minor fire. Failed sections will automatically be cut out of the system, the power will be sent elsewhere, but that puts the remaining sections under more pressure. That pressure gradually builds as more sections fail until you hit catastrophic failure point. All the remaining sections break at once and …”
“And you get a firestorm,” said Donnell harshly. “How long have we got until it happens here?”
“The amount of solar power being fed into the power reservoir peaks in the summer months,” said Tad. “That’s the main danger period. The firestorms in the other four cities all started during the summer weather on their continent.”
Donnell glanced at Machico. “You’re right, Mac. The fires last summer were a warning sign that the power overflow system was nearing the point of catastrophic failure. We have to leave New York this spring.”
I didn’t hear Machico’s reply. I was lost in my memories of the London firestorm. That nightmare was going to happen again. New York was going to burn!
Chapter Twenty-one
Ten minutes later, Donnell was pacing round the room, while the rest of us sat watching him. “It’s taken Mac six months to convince me the firestorm threat is real. How the chaos can I persuade everyone else to take it seriously enough to abandon their homes and possessions and leave New York this spring? I daren’t even tell them Tad is webbed. If I do, then someone is bound to try digging the web out of his head in the vain hope of using it themselves.”
A gory image of that appeared in my mind and I felt sick. Tad looked understandably nauseous too.
“The Resistance won’t need convincing to follow you out of New York. They’d follow you anywhere,” said Machico.
“I know that,” said Donnell. “Chaos knows why the Resistance members are still so loyal to me given the way I’ve failed them in the past, but they are. The other divisions are an entirely different matter though.”
Machico gave a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. “It’s not your fault if the other divisions choose to stay in New York.”
Donnell glared at him. “I’m not just the leader of the Resistance, Mac, but the leader of the whole alliance as well. Do you expect me to light-heartedly walk away in the spring and leave all the division men, women and children to burn to death?”
I felt as angry as Donnell. I knew many of the division people, especially the children, as well as I knew the Resistance members. I’d taught school classes, helped with the crèche, and done some nursing. It was horrific to think of leaving the babies and children I’d taught, cuddled, and nursed through the winter fever to die in a firestorm.
Machico lifted his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry if I seem callous about what happens to the other divisions, but try to understand my viewpoint, Sean. I’ve spent six months picturing a nightmare future. Even if I could persuade Natsumi and my daughters to leave New York with me, what chance would we have of surviving on our own? Right now I can’t think of anything other than the fact my family and the rest of the Resistance people may survive this.”
“Yes, from your viewpoint things have improved,” said Donnell, in a calmer voice, “but I’m the one having nightmares now. Think about the fact there can’t be any last minute escapes from a New York firestorm like there were in London, because we have no working portals here. Then remember that it’s my fault that those portals aren’t working.”
“It was Seamus who killed the portals, not you,” said Machico. “You misjudged the boy, but so did the rest of us. You have to focus your mind on planning for the future rather than brooding on past mistakes, Sean, or we’re all doomed.”
“You’re right,” said Donnell. “We’ll have to keep the firestorm threat secret until we’ve got a proper plan worked out. I can’t just tell people we have to leave New York. I need to offer them the prospect of a new and better home.”
He flopped down into his chair. “I think we should tentatively plan on leaving at the start of April. We’ll head for the southern tip of Fence, and hopefully trade in Tad, Phoenix and Braden in exchange for safe passage between their defences and the coast. We might even manage to beg some vegetable seeds and livestock as well.”
He turned to look at Tad. “Do you think the fabulously wealthy and influential Thaddeus Wallam-
Crane the Eighth is worth a few chickens?”
“I’m sure my grandfather would be happy to pay for some chickens to get me back,” said Tad.
“Once Fence is safely behind us, we’ll keep heading south until we find somewhere that looks like it could make a good new home,” said Donnell. “Travelling will be painfully slow. All the old land routes have been abandoned for nearly two centuries, so chaos knows what obstacles we’ll hit on our way.”
“Fence blocks off Pennsylvania,” muttered Tad, “and Virginia would be too far on foot.”
“Those are the old state names, aren’t they?” said Donnell. “I’ve heard of them, but I don’t know where they are. I’m proud to think of myself as Irish, the Irish have a grand tradition of rebellion, but the truth is I’ve spent most of my life in London and New York. You’d think I’d know lots of details about the area around this city, but I don’t. When I was a boy, everywhere was just one step away through a portal. It never occurred to me to wonder how far away places were, or in what direction. I wouldn’t even have been aware of what continent I was on, if it wasn’t for the different time zones and having to go to a Transit area to portal between continents.”
He sighed. “Now the portals are all dead, and we’ll have to do our travelling the hard way, dragging carts loaded with supplies and babies.”
“I really don’t want to ask difficult or annoying questions,” said Tad, “but have you considered that the portals here only stopped working because the New York portal relay centre broke down?”
“The New York portal relay centre didn’t break down, Tad,” said Donnell. “It was blown up with a bomb.”
“It was?” Tad seemed startled. “You mentioned an explosion, but I thought that was an accident. Something like a power storage unit overloading. I can see plenty of records about the New York portal relay centre breaking down, but no mention of a bombing.”
He shook his head. “Well, whatever happened to it, my point is that there are still plenty of working portals outside the New York area.”