Chapter 82 - Harbor of the Damned
The impact against the rusted pylons of Navy Pier shattered what remained of our pod's flotation collar. Cold water surged over my boots as I dragged Marco through the breached hatchway onto the icy concrete apron.
The silence that greeted us was worse than the roar of the engines.
Chicago lay under a shroud of absolute darkness. Above us, the skeletal iron lattice of the giant Ferris wheel loomed against the gray winter clouds, motionless and dead. Yet beneath the silence hummed an undercurrent of impossible activity.
From the darkened concourse of the pier, faint mechanical clicks echoed through the freezing air.
"Marco, can you walk?" I asked, hooking his arm over my shoulder. His skin was burning up despite the sub-zero wind; his biomechanical core was working double-time to purge the feedback from the overload.
"I can walk," he muttered, though his footsteps were uneven. "Look at the concourse, Laura. Look at the gates."
I looked up. Emerging from the pedestrian tunnels and the darkened tourist pavilions were dozens of people. They did not run, they did not scream, and they did not look for shelter from the biting sleet. They walked with the stiff, synchronized gait of clockwork automatons, moving in strict geometric files toward Lake Shore Drive.
In the center of each person's chest—visible through heavy winter coats and down jackets—was a soft, pulsing node of sapphire blue.
"They're the recipients," I whispered, horror rising in my throat. As a trauma nurse, I knew the medical records by heart. Over the last twenty years, Bellini Pharmaceuticals and its shell corporations had subsidized thousands of cardiac implants, neural stents, and advanced pacemakers to hospitals across Cook County. It had been hailed as the greatest philanthropic healthcare initiative in the state's history.
It hadn't been charity. It had been an installation.
"The Black Sun carrier wave took over their autonomic nervous systems the moment the main power grid failed," Marco said, watching the blank, glassy eyes of an elderly woman who walked past us without turning her head. "They aren’t conscious, Laura. Their hearts are acting as nodes in an ad-hoc biological supercomputer."
Suddenly, the woman’s head snapped ninety degrees toward us. Her sapphire node pulsed with a sharp double-beat. Ten paces behind her, four more figures halted in unison, their heads turning toward Marco with terrifying precision.
May you like
The carrier wave had detected us.
***
