Free Infinity Cage by Alex Scarrow Page A

folks died that day.’ She smiled sadly at her. ‘
New York
died that day. It just took that useless mayor and all his officials a year to catch up with the fact.’
    Walt shook his head firmly. ‘City ain’t dead just yet.’ Clearly this was something they discussed and disagreed on frequently. ‘No way, Charm, this isn’t no dead city, nor is it an abandoned city, not while there’s so many of us island folk still living out here.’ He pointed at the large panoramic windows. ‘C’mon, you can see them lights on out there? OK, it ain’t all sparkly like it used to be years back. Sure, this placeisn’t lit up like some Christmas tree just as you see in the old movies. But you folks can see clear as glass, at night anyway, this city’s still got maybe a hundred … two hundred people living in it.’ He shrugged defiantly. ‘That makes it alive enough in my opinion.’
    Charm huffed and rolled her eyes at her husband’s stubbornness.
    ‘Was Waldstein here when the levee walls broke?’ asked Maddy.
    ‘Not on that particular day. He came and went all the time; business trips and the like. I believe, though, that this was his favourite place to stay. He loved the view from the top of his tower.’
    ‘So when was the last time he was here? When was the last time you actually saw him?’
    Walt settled back in his chair, and his eyes glinted the amber light of the candles set out on the grand table between them. ‘Over nine years ago. Not long after the big Manhattan flood. There were only a few of us left working here then. A skeleton crew, as they say. All the rest of the W.G.S. people had been made redundant by Mr Waldstein. Sent home. It was like he was winding things down here in New York. Almost like he knew Manhattan was running out of time.’
    ‘There was just a half a dozen of you left, wasn’t there?’ said Charm.
    Walt nodded. ‘His pilot, three security guards, his cook and me holding the fort here back then. He sat us down and told us he was relocating us. Closing down this tower for good.’
    ‘Did he say where he was relocating you to?’ asked Maddy.
    ‘No. Just that he was moving his business affairs westwards, away from the advancing sea. He offered to take us all with him. Move us and our families too. But I said I wanted to stay on inNew York.’ Walt shook his head and laughed at himself. ‘Born and raised in this city. Damned if I was gonna just leave this place for a ghost town.’ He looked at his wife. ‘My wife thinks I’m a stubborn ol’ fool. Anyway, he took the others with him. Want me to tell you folks the last thing he said to me just as they all climbed into his personal gyrocopter …?’
    Maddy nodded.
    Walt hesitated, with a grin slowly spreading across his lips. His wife nodded resignedly too, clearly having heard this particular anecdote far too many times already.
    ‘The man said to me he didn’t need this place any more. He said since I was prepared to stay on here as the
caretaker …
the whole tower was mine, if I wanted it.’
    Charm laughed softly. ‘Walt acts like he’s king of the castle now.’
    ‘Well … damn, it
is
my castle. And, when the flooding’s all done and the sea starts heading back out one day, then I’ll be the proud owner of some prime real estate. New York
will
be revived, you can count on that.’
    ‘You’re just a dreaming fool,’ she sighed. ‘Those ice-caps may be all gone and the sea may have finished stealing chunks of land. But sure as hell the sea isn’t going to start backing up the way it came. Not any time soon. Not in our lifetime at any rate.’
    He shrugged that comment off. ‘You ain’t got any faith, Mrs Roberts. Good Lord gave us another flooding for a reason. I reckon His work’s done on that score now.’
    Charm rolled her eyes again at her husband. ‘And you ain’t no Noah.’
    ‘Anyway,’ Walt continued, ‘I reckon we got it better than most, sitting up here. Most other folks were heading west,