Chapter 2
At first, Alice took no notice of the sound. It was coming from her phone, and she assumed it was the timer she’d set as an excuse to leave brunch, and her mother.
But within a millisecond, it was clear that was not it.
The phones in the other stalls were also sounding. This was no wake-up call. At least not in the usual sense.
Then the lights went out and a red emergency light began flashing. A fire alarm went off. Even then, it took Alice a few beats to absorb what was happening. False alarms sounded all the time. There was no need to act. No need to be alarmed …
But why were all the phones also going off? Their warnings were amplified by the tiles in the bathroom. The noise growing, the urgency growing.
This was no normal alarm. This was no false alarm.
Alice leaped to her feet. Something was going on. Something bad.
Heart pounding, hands shaking from the sudden rush of adrenaline, Alice fumbled with the lock on the stall. Finally getting it open, she stepped out, only to be shoved aside by a woman running for the door.
Get out.
Get out.
Now! The shriek in Alice’s mind joined the shriek in her ears.
Her phone was now screaming at her.
Whaaag! Whaaag! Whaaaaaggg!!!
It was the civil defense alarm.
Were they under attack? They were under attack.
Oh fuck, oh fuck.
Alice threw open the door and was met with pandemonium. It was as though every alarm everywhere was going off at once. Fire, elevator, security. Gongs, sirens, bells, phones. She could barely see for the noise. The air was thick with alarm.
Whaaaah, whaaaah, whaaah!!!
Chairs were overturned. Fine bone china cups had fallen to the floor and shattered, spilling tea and coffee and mimosas with fresh squeezed orange juice on the thick carpet.
People were rushing, unsure which direction to head in.
Unsure what was happening, or where safety might lie.
Servers, hotel staff, security were running around, trying to help but equally uncertain.
The panic was rising, spreading.
Pedestrians outside were rushing into the building, while those inside were fighting to get out. There was, it seemed, no safe place.
Alice plastered herself against the wall, her mind racing. Skidding in circles. What to do, what to do?
Vivien. She had to find her mother. Had to get her out.
Get out.
Get out.
She searched the room for that one familiar figure. Nothing.
In a moment of sudden and horrifying clarity, Alice understood that her mother had escaped. Without her. Had saved herself.
Had left her behind.
Alice began moving toward the stairs. If there was any safety against whatever was heading their way, it would be, could be, might be, in the lowest level. But as she stepped forward, a hand gripped her arm and pulled her backward so hard that Alice almost lost her balance.
Then she was enveloped in the scent of flower dew water.
“Mom?”
“Come, quickly.”
Alice felt a tiny hand grip hers and yank her with surprising strength and unsurprising urgency.
The man in the dark suit was leading them outside.
No doubt believing the danger must lie within, since the hotel alarms were going off.
As they ran for the exit, the great symbol for human rights elbowing others aside, Alice could hear people trapped in the glass elevators, calling for help.
Screaming for help. Pounding on the glass for help.
Their voices barely audible above the clanging of the elevator alarms.
“Mom,” Alice shouted, trying to slow their progress. She pointed.
Vivien paused and turned to look. She too saw the faces plastered against the glass. Begging them to help.
Alice caught the eye of a man grasping a child to his chest. She’d never really seen panic before. But this was it.
Every instinct told her to run for the exit.
Get out.
Get out!
But how could she leave them behind without at least trying…? She wished she hadn’t turned. Hadn’t looked. Hadn’t seen the father’s face as he gripped his little daughter. Hadn’t locked eyes.
But she had. She started toward the elevator, then stopped. Frozen. Knowing if she went to help, she’d never get out.
That was as far as she got before the security man grabbed them, practically lifting both women off their feet.
The three of them were pushed out the door in the stampede of people. Alice had her arm around her mother’s tiny waist, keeping her upright. To fall was to be crushed.
Once expelled into the unexpected sunshine, Alice saw why people from outside were fighting to get into the building.
Heard why.
The shrieking of alarms was even worse out there. Civil defense claxons were sounding. Every car alarm was going off.
Every store burglar and fire alarm was shrieking.
Every phone was sounding a warning.
Something horrific was approaching. Something terrible was about to happen.
There was no escape. And outside was no safer than inside.
Trucks and buses and cars had slammed into each other, some mounting the sidewalks, plowing down pedestrians.
Alice just hoped whatever happened next, it would be quick. Painless. A flash, and then—
Vivien gripped her daughter. Alice reached for her mother. The two women held each other and searched the roads and congested sidewalks. They looked into the sky.
They—
And then it stopped. At once. Every alarm went silent, and all that was left was the echo as the shrieks were picked up in the gentle breeze and dispersed. Died away. Leaving men, women, children standing still, paralyzed. Petrified.
Holding their breaths.
Was this like those bombs that went silent just before the explosion?
A hush fell over the crowd. Over the city. There was complete and utter silence now. And then it was broken.
By a single laugh. Nervous but welcome. Then more, as people looked around, caught each other’s eyes, and exhaled.
Whatever it was had passed. And then came the calls for help, and moans of pain from those hurt in the crashes. First responders, doctors, nurses, those with training rushed to help.
Alice turned to Vivien and was about to say something when she noticed her mother was still tense. Frozen in place. Not yet willing to accept the danger was behind them.
“Mom?”
Vivien put up a manicured hand and Alice shut up. She too waited.
Waited. Watching her mother.
And then she saw Vivien’s shoulders sag and heard a long, long sigh.
It was over.
But what was “it”?
“Oh, shit.”
Alice turned to the businessman next to her. He was looking at his phone. Others were also reading something that had popped up.
She opened her phone. “Holy fuck,” she whispered. “Look.”
She turned the face of the phone toward her mother, but Vivien didn’t seem interested. She was staring straight ahead. At nothing, it seemed. But Alice knew that look. Her eyes narrow, her teeth biting her lower lip.
Vivien Li was thinking. Hard.
“The sirens,” the man next to her was saying to no one in particular. “It wasn’t just here.” He looked around and caught Alice’s eyes. “It was everywhere.”
Everywhere. There was no more information. Just that red bullet point.
There was more laughter.
“That can’t be true,” said a woman to her husband. “What do they mean by ‘everywhere’? Russia? The Space Station?”
“All the ships at sea?” said someone else, to more laughter.
The crowd had temporarily bonded, having shared this horrific experience. Having temporarily forgotten that a few moments ago they’d have gladly killed each other to survive.
“Come with me,” said Vivien.
“Where to?”
“Home.”
As she followed her mother, Alice passed a man holding a child to his chest. She lowered her head, hoping he hadn’t seen her. Seen not just her fear but her cowardice.
But she’d seen it. She could have fought the grip. Could have at least tried to help.
But she hadn’t.
“That was so weird,” said Kevin. “I really thought we were fucked.”
He looked across the spacious, gracious living room in their mother’s Georgetown home, toward the closed door to the study.
“Did she say anything?” Kevin’s partner, Paul, asked.
The two men had also been at brunch, at a friend’s place, when the sirens sounded. When it stopped, some homing instinct had kicked in and they’d come back here.
“About what happened?” asked Alice. “No, of course not. What could she say?”
“You didn’t pull the alarm, did you?” asked Kevin. “To get out of brunch?”
“If I could’ve, I would’ve.”
“One alarm, maybe, but all of them?” Paul glanced toward the closed door. “Bit of overkill, even for Vivien. What’s she doing in there?”
He and Vivien had a surprisingly good relationship, though Alice knew that would change as soon as she dropped the bomb.
“Playing Candy Crush, I suspect,” said Kevin.
Alice laughed. She really did love her brother. More than anyone else. And she’d grown to like Paul too, though she was slightly annoyed that Kevin could have a partner who wasn’t Asian, but she could not.
Paul and Kevin had been together for three years and secretly married for one. They were now in the process of surrogacy.
Then she remembered that as far as Vivien was concerned, Paul was Kevin’s best friend. Nothing else. Nothing more. Although how Kevin was going to explain to their mother that he intended to raise a child with his best friend was a source of some delight on Alice’s part.
Kevin and Paul’s hands were just touching as they watched the television news.
It had become clear, in the hours since the alarms went off, what was meant by “everywhere.”
It meant everywhere.
Russia, China. Cleveland.
Imminent-hull-breach alerts had gone off on the Space Station.
Abandon-ship claxons sounded on all the ships at sea, sending cruise ship passengers fumbling with life preservers and running toward the lifeboats, wishing now they’d paid more attention to the drills.
Airplane passengers were interviewed at their gates as they got off.
Pale. Shaky. They described the lights suddenly going out in the cabins.
The oxygen masks descending. The warnings.
They described the planes’ rapid descents in the hopes of landing before whatever catastrophe was about to happen, happened.
The shocked flight attendants telling everyone to assume the crash position.
“The funny thing was,” said one passenger, her eyes wide with shock, “there was no screaming. No sound at all.” She stared at the reporter. “Everyone just grew quiet.”
Ashen pilots described the scene in the cockpits as every engine apparently failed. At once. As lights flashed warning that fire had broken out in every compartment, every engine, all at once.
They fought for control of the planes, while the silent souls in the cabins prepared to die.
Would they ever fully recover?
“The funny thing is,” said one pilot, though he clearly did not mean haha funny, “there was nothing wrong with the plane. The alarms sounded for no reason. Then stopped.”
But they’d still landed. Fast. In case.
Alice wondered if she’d ever really recover, not from the screaming alarms but from that plea in the father’s eyes. And doing nothing to help him. Them. Allowing herself to be led outside.
Kevin took her hand, and all three sat in silence, watching the analysts grope for explanations.
How could this happen?
What did it mean?
Was it an attack? A warning?
Around and around the talking heads went, desperate for answers, desperate to fill the air, though they were as perplexed, as lost, as Alice and Kevin and Paul. And presumably Vivien, who’d locked herself in her study.
“Who could have done this?” one of the anchors asked.
“Why?” asked one of the commentators. “To what purpose?”
The study door opened, and Kevin dropped Paul’s hand.
“You’re coming with me.”
Kevin got to his feet.
Not only was he the favorite child by a country mile, he was also a lawyer, used to advising their mother on her human rights campaigns.
“No, not you. You.”
“Me?”
“Come.”
Alice got to her feet and looked at her brother, who frowned. Not in annoyance. But in some bafflement. How could a food blogger be helpful at this moment?
“Where’re we going?” asked Alice, but Vivien was already out the door and heading to the black Cadillac Escalade that had pulled into the driveway.
The door was held open by a stern woman with an earpiece.
This was not private security. This was something else entirely.