The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin Read Free Book Online Page B

San Luis. Really? Alone? In that thing? Yes, Michael told them, unfolding his drawing on the table. Really.
    How ironic that after all those years of blowing on the embers of the old world, trying to relight civilization with its leftover machines, in the end it should be the most ancient form of human propulsion that seized him. The wind blew, it back-eddied along the edge of the sail, it created a vacuum that the boat forever tried to fill. With every voyage he took, he went a little longer, a little farther, a little more crazily out there. He’d traced the coasts at the start, getting the feel of things. North and east along the coast to oil-mucked New Orleans and its depressing plume of gooey, river-borne, chemical stink. South to Padre Island, with its long, wild stretches of sand as white as a talc. As his confidence grew, his trajectories expanded. From time to time he came across the anachronistic leavings of mankind—clumps of rusted wreckage piled along the shoals, ersatz atolls of bobbing plastic, derelict oil rigs bestriding massive slicks of pumped-out sludge—but soon he left all of these behind, driving his craft deeper into the heart of an oceanic wilderness. The water’s color darkened; it contained incredible depths. He shot the sun with his sextant, plotting his course with a stub of pencil. One day it occurred to him that beneath him lay nearly a mile of water.
    The morning of the storm, Michael had been at sea for forty-two days. His plan was to make Freeport by noon, restock, rest for a week or so—he really needed to put on some weight—and set out again. Of course, there would be Lore to contend with, always an uncomfortable business. Would she even speak to him? Just glare at him from a distance? Grab him by the belt and drag him into the barracks for an hour of angry sex that, against his better judgment, he couldn’t make himself refuse? Michael never knew what it would be or which made him feel worse; he was either the asshole who had broken her heart or the hypocrite in her bed. Because the one thing he couldn’t find the words to explain was that she had nothing to do with any of it: not the Nautilus, or his need to be alone, or the fact that, although she was in every way deserving, he could not love her in return.
    His thoughts went, as they often did, to the last time he’d seen Alicia—the last time anyone had, as far as he knew. Why had she chosen him? She had come to him in the hospital, on the morning before Sara and the others had left the Homeland to return to Kerrville. Michael wasn’t sure what time it was; he was asleep and awoke to see her sitting by his bed. She had this …  look on her face. He sensed that she’d been sitting there for some time, watching him as he slept.
    —Lish?
    She smiled.
    —Hey, Michael.
    That was it, for at least another thirty seconds. No How are you feeling? or You look kind of ridiculous in that cast, Circuit, or any of the thousand little barbs that the two of them had fired at each other since they were little kids.
    —Can you do something for me? A favor.
    —Okay.
    But the thought went unfinished. Alicia looked away, then back again.
    —We’ve been friends a long time, haven’t we?
    —Sure, he said. Absolutely we have.
    —You know, you were always so damn smart. Do you remember … now, when was this? I don’t know, we were just a couple of kids. I think Peter might have been there, Sara, too. We all snuck up to the Wall one night, and you gave this speech, an actual speech, I swear to God, about how the lights worked, the turbines and the batteries and all the rest of it. You know, up until then, I thought that they just came on by themselves? Seriously. God, I felt so dumb.
    He shrugged, embarrassed.
    —I was kind of a showoff, I guess.
    —Oh, don’t apologize. I thought it right then: That kid’s really got something. Someday, when we need him, he’s going to save our sorry asses.
    Michael hadn’t known what to say.