The Burning World (Warm Bodies #2)(108)

WE


THERE ARE MANY EARTHS inside the earth. The outermost is the busiest, with its oceans and forests and cities, its buzzing, hissing, chirping, grunting, roaring, speaking, and singing. This is the surface, the present, the game board on which life plays. Beneath the surface is the hidden world of holes and tunnels, where creatures creep and slither and hold secret meetings in the strata of eons past. And at the center is the fire that forged it all, Earth’s raging, spinning heart, full of endless momentum, always ready to quake and erupt, forever growling change.

The earth likes change. It grows bored with balance; rest makes it restless. The moment its inhabitants think they know the rules, it shakes the board clear and moves on to the next game.

Next epoch. Next era. Next evolution.

We swim up through the mantle and into the bedrock, through Paleocene and Pliocene and Holocene, through our own bones and shells from species to species, generation to generation, each piece of us recognizing its remains as we float past them, indulging in brief bursts of nostalgia.

This is something we do. We remember and observe, and in the Higher levels where such things are possible, we hope.

One thing we do not do is act. We are books, not authors. There are times—like this present age of soft lines and translucent barriers and power vacuums filling with poison—when we wish we could be more. But the world belongs to the living, and they have not yet asked for our help.

So we float upward, through young rock and dark dirt and into the lowest depths of a once-great city. We pass through stagnant water tunnels and ancient brick sewage pipes clogged with century-spanning strata of shit, then up into the dense web of cables that were the neurons of New York’s brain before a thousand bullets silenced its thoughts.

Now New York is mindless. Gray and rotting. An undead city walking without purpose, repeating echoes of its former life until they’re worn beyond recognition, and always, always seeking flesh.

We breach the surface and the noise hits us, a human density rarely found in the new world. The queue forms somewhere in the muck of the Jersey City Bayou, condenses on the floating Holland Footbridge, and spills out into a cramped mess of fear and desperation against the Manhattan border gate.

It’s here, within sight of the razor wire fence and its weary customs agents, that we find the boy and his new guardians. They stand in a small park in a crowd of battered refugees, carrying only overstuffed backpacks after hiding their van in a suburban garage. There is no room for vehicles in this coveted real estate. There is barely room for people. Every inch of Manhattan has been put to use, eighty-floor high-rises converted into tenements, parks into high-yield corn fields, the streets themselves into sprawling tent cities. Only the scythe of the modern mortality rate creates vacancies for the crowd outside. Concrete flood barriers form a wall around the island, and the swollen East River and Hudson surround it like invading armies, splashing over the top in every stiff breeze. Submerged to her chest, Lady Liberty is no longer a proud torchbearer standing tall for freedom. She is a drowning swimmer waving for help.

“Electricity,” Gebre says. “Plumbing. Law enforcement. And zero undead hordes.”

Gael sighs and picks his pack off the muddy grass as the line advances. “Yeah.”

“They won’t put us on salvage crews. There has to be thousands of kids in there and they will need teachers.”

“Hopefully for more diverse subjects than they did in UT-AZ. My doctorate doesn’t qualify me to teach rifle maintenance.”

“Gael, Gael, Gael,” Gebre says, gesturing grandly to the crumbled high-rises beyond the fence. “It’s New York City.”

The boy watches his guardians through a dark veil. On their insistence, he is once again hiding behind his Ray-Bans. He has not spoken since they deterred him from DC, but not because he’s angry. He could have left them if he chose to and finished his journey alone, but he stayed with them. He followed them here to this sinking island of denial, tilting his ear to some obscure suggestion. A voice from the deep halls of the Library, the rustling of countless pages forming a whisper.

“What do you think, Rover?” Gebre asks. “You want to go to school? I can teach you wars and governments, Gael can teach you quarks and bosons. All kinds of useless things!”

The boy is not listening. He is looking south down Canal Street, at a procession of white commuter vans. The boy sees the grim faces of the drivers, but the passengers are only silhouettes. He peers hard at the tinted windows, trying to penetrate the glass.

“Ages and skills,” the customs agent says, approaching Gebre with a clipboard.

“I’m forty-three,” Gebre replies. “Gael’s thirty-four, and Rover’s . . . ten.”

“I taught quantum physics at Brown University,” Gael says.

The agent looks up blankly. “We don’t have any need for—”

“Applied quantum physics,” Gebre interjects, flashing a smile. “He can . . . design better bullets?”

Gael stares coldly at the agent. The agent makes a mark on his board. “And you?” he grunts toward Gebre without looking up.

“Gun maintenance,” Gebre says, still grinning.

“My husband is being modest,” Gael says with a subdued ferocity. “He has a doctorate in world history.”

Gebre sighs. “Fine, yes, I’m a historian. And I’m also very good at cleaning M16s.”