Book One: A Storm of Glass and Ashes

Chapter 17: Handmade

The kitchen doors locked with a deadbolt. Hawk pulled Alex back through the doors and, slamming them shut, threw the bolt to get some extra security. There was one, small window in the door's heavy thickness. It had a partial look at the dining room, but was mostly filled by the small alcove of a drink station (This held one body, in remarkably good shape given that this had once been a high traffic area. It wore the happy khaki uniform of Zoo personnel, but it was hard to guess if this were an actual wait-staff, or just a member of the zoo. Hawk imagined it was a waiter, because that at least gave definition to the dead. Better to be wrong than to forget them all).

They'd be able to see the unknown coming, at least.

"What's going on?" Em said. Alex looked a bit dazed, still.

"It was a mother. It had a child," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else in the kitchen. Henry Dyson was busy grabbing knives for himself, testing their sharpness, discarding this one, lifting that one for heft. He finally decided on a two-foot long serrated number, probably meant for slicing meat and tough veg. He kept trying to hold it like a baseball bat.

"There's something alive out there," Hawk said. "And it looked like an ape. Maybe a gorilla."

"Maybe the gorilla they fed the honeypot to." Henry said, and started to set the knife down.

"No. That was an elderly gorilla. This was a female with a child. Not a newborn, either." Hawk wasn't sure why she added that, and reviewed her own memory quickly. Yes, the creature she'd seen clinging to the female had been active, clinging to its...its doll. "It was at least a few months old. I want to say older than that, though."

"She's forgetting the most important part. It was wearing clothes." Alex's words cut across all of it, as sharp as that serrated knife, and hot. "Not like a human's clothing, either. It had a loincloth, a belt, some baubles on the belt, and I'm pretty sure the kid had a toy."

Em and Dyson looked at Alex for a moment, measuring his grip on sanity. Then, as one, they turned to her. "Other grownups," Em said, and pointed with both index fingers together. "Explain."

Dyson gave them a look. Hawk was pretty sure it was a fond look. "So maybe someone tied an apron around the pregnant female, and she gave birth?" Dyson said.

"It wasn't a gorilla," Hawk said, reluctantly. "It was almost a gorilla. But I'd say it was...almost like it was more than a gorilla. And yeah, the infant had something. I keep thinking 'doll', even though it couldn't have been a doll."

"Why couldn't it have been a doll?" Alex said. His eyes were huge and bright, his face wreathed by something very nearly like joy.

"Because where would it have found that toy? It was crude and..." she stopped. "And it was made of organic matter. All of what we saw. The creature, its infant, the clothes—"

"So you cop to it being clothes," Alex said.

"—all of it was organic matter. Alex, nothing organic can survive the energy." And she felt tremors now, as if this entire half-formed idea had grabbed hold of her whole body, was shaking her in its teeth.

"So...what? What exactly are you saying?" Em said. "Magic monkey people figured out how to keep organic matter from dissolving into Glass?"

They had no answer. Instead, Alex said, "Let's see if Kaiser will let us leave. This is way beyond our paygrade."

But they were told to keep going. "We need more footage. The governor isn't convinced and, frankly, one picture of a living monkey isn't going to be enough. Good news is, that also explains the living things down there." Kaiser's voice echoed through a cell phone they had brought with them. All four of them were gathered around it, as if it were a source of comfort. "There were eighteen monkeys in the monkey house. The elderly gorilla was in the Prism, that's one. The pregnant gorilla shared a cage with the old one, it obviously delivered, there's two. That leaves sixteen creatures. If it helps, I'll have a drone drop you off some noise-makers."

"Define 'noise makers'," Alex said.

"They're fist-sized fireworks. They make a lot of noise and a lot of light."

Alex was shaking his head, despite Kaiser not being able to see it. "We may need more than that."

"That's what we're giving you. I've asked about guns," and this came hastily, just in time to cut off Alex's next outburst. "Feds say no. Between New York's gun control laws and the absolute insanity we have trying to get the Bronx evac'd, there's just no way to get them right now. I'm starting the ball on that, but hopefully we'll have you people extracted before we see light on that subject."

Alex was clearly trying to think up a response, when Emile, standing beside the window into the dining room said, "Holy shit, guys. We have company again."

Hawk moved before either of the boys could do much more than stumble, and stood with her forehead pressed to the small pane of glass, both hands blocking out the light.

There were four of them, and they walked on two legs. It wasn't a shambling, awkward motion, either. They were shaggy with fur, but they moved with the grace that spoke of practice, even skill. As if two legs were natural, as if they were made for it. Their fur came in three differing shades of brown, a pale tan, a bright auburn, plain brown, and the last was a rich black hue, so deep it seemed blue at times. Teeth flashed, eyes gleamed; these were not human. You could not doubt that. Their faces were heavy and ape-like, with thick lips and narrow noses, and tusks jutted out and down.

The auburn-hued creature was the female with the infant, only now her feet were covered. Hawk desperately wanted to say that they were wrapped with leaves or debris, but this was not true at all. These were some sort of material—leather, Hawk guessed, though it didn't look right for leather—drawn in the front with string, elaborate lacing, and capped by as pretty a bow as anyone could want. Shoes, but she couldn't just say shoes. Nor could she say they were made by the creatures, because that was an assumption, and it was enough of a leap to say that this auburn-creature had stepped on glass and gone to get shoes before she went to get help. From glimpses of the other three creatures, they all wore the same coverings. Shoes. How could they all have shoes?

The fourth was the black creature, its fur like silk, its eyes a piercingly odd blue. Its teeth were all four capped in gold-tinted metal, it walked with the aid of a stick that was carved over, capped with gleaming red and blue stones. It had a loincloth of elaborate white fabric with gleaming baubles on the belt, but over this it wore a chest-piece that left no doubt of its origin. It had been made. And as much as Hawk wanted to say "by human hands" she had a terrifying feeling that was not the case. Strange gems gleamed in the embroidered patterns on its collar, and sleeves of what looked for all the world like samite trailed from its arms to the ground.

"Holy shit," she said, and stepped back to let Alex and Henry Dyson see it. "The big one looks like some kind of priest in that get-up."

"What the hell happened in that ape-house?" Alex said.

From behind them, on a cutting board, came the cranky voice of Kaiser Willheim. "Will one of you people please tell me what the hell is going on?"

Alex walked over to the phone, said, "No. Call you back." And hung up. "Son of a bitch is going to give us these fucking cameras, he can damn well watch the same goddamn feeds as the rest of us. What are you..." By then he'd made it to the window. When he looked, he froze. "What the—"

"Clothes," Em said. "You said they were wearing them. You were right."

"Maybe it found them somewhere," Hawk said.

"And maybe it's fucking Maybelline," Em said. "And besides that, how'd they get that it on? I wouldn't begin to guess how to put all that shit on. It's like...five, six different layers, and that's just on the sleeves. And that is absolutely a goddamn motherfucking priest of some kind."

"That," Hawk said, softly, "Is an enormous assumption. And—"

"Guys," Alex said, his voice trembling. "I'd say shut up but it doesn't matter anymore. Our company knows we're here."