But when he got to the stairs, he went up them fast and kept a watch for pursuers, just to be sure. Unbelievable, he thought, shaking his head. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned New York apathy? What a pain in my ass!
Still, there was always something to be learned from experiments. He knew now never to veer from the Plan, no matter how tempting.
He blinked as he stepped out into the different world aboveground. The light-and-shadow-striped gully of Seventh Avenue was crammed with people – thousands, tens of thousands of them.
Good morning, class, he said silently, as he pointed himself toward the geyser of lights in Times Square.
Chapter 7
Getting my kids cleaned up, hydrated, medicated, and back into their beds took me over an hour. I wasn’t able to tuck myself in until after four A.M. Outside my bedroom window, the sky was actually beginning to lighten above the East Side.
Hadn’t pulling an all-nighter once been fun? was my last thought before I fell unconscious.
It seemed like just a finger snap later when my eyes shot open again. The sonata of coughing, sneezing, and wailing that had awakened me continued at full pitch through my open bedroom door. Who needed an alarm clock?
Being a single parent was tough in a lot of ways, but as I lay there staring up at the ceiling, I decided on the absolute worst one: there was nobody beside me to nudge with an elbow and to mumble, “Your turn.”
Somehow I managed to get to my feet. Two more of the kids were down: Jane and Fiona in the bathroom, taking turns at the Bennett vomitorium. A dizzy, pleasant fantasy suddenly occurred to me – maybe I was just having a nightmare.