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entities, his protestations to the contrary, the other players were more in
the category of home-grown powers-that-be over-minds that were attempting to
put their own dogs in the hunt. Ganesh/Kankiten and Hanuman were putting their
money on someone named Dakkar; the elves had brung Cuchulainn to the dance or
maybe someone (or something) else had brought them. And God (or gods) knew who
or what else was being dumped into the mix. Susanowo-no-mikoto had mentioned
something about volcanoes and putting multiple pieces on the board but maybe I
could chalk all of that up to a sex-induced dream-rave.
All the more reason to leave the big showdown to the willing and better
equipped.
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Something I was trying to explain to the rutabaga for the sixteenth time when
his ghostly form began to dissolve.
"The trans-dimensional hyperlink is growing corrupt," it said. "Communication
will become more difficult."
As if we had approached anything close to an exchange of clarity during the
past couple of hours, I thought. So, no big. Except . . .
If the trans-dimensional conduit was breaking down, it wasn't just a question
of losing our two-way real-time conversation it meant our so-called "passage
to the sea" was growing unstable and that could be a very bad thing if the
tunnel'o'water went splat while we were still inside!
I threw myself out of my chair and ran through the dissipating ghost of Al on
my way to the front of the boat.
"Brace yourselves!" I yelled, grabbing the edge of the pilot's chair.
Cuch and Zotz turned to stare at me. "Brace for what?" they both asked.
I shook my head. "I don't know but it's about to happen!"
The tunnel collapsed.
* * *
I'm not sure what I expected. Maybe that the tunnel the trans-dimensional
conduit would turn itself inside-out. And us with it!
Or that it would implode, crushing us like the collapse of an elongated
singularity.
Or explode, scattering our dust particles through seven different universes.
Instead, we slid into a patch of fog and stayed there, gliding to a near
stop.
"Zotz?" I asked, groping for the instrument panel.
"No discernable current," he answered, "maneuvering power only."
"Where are we?"
"In a fog bank, duh!"
"Turn on the GPS, Cap'n Crunch," I growled.
"Oh. Yeah." There was a sound of switches being toggled and the screen
flickered to a dim semblance of life behind a filter of grey mist. "Well,
whaddaya know? It woiks!" He fiddled with the settings and I got an impression
of the graphics shifting and enlarging. I couldn't make out any details.
"So?" I asked impatiently, "Where are we?"
"Looks like we made it . . ." he murmured, tweaking the settings. "According
to this your girlfriend delivered us all the way down to the Big Easy."
"Don't start," I warned. Then looked around at the wall of grey mist that
encompassed us all sides. "But how close are we to the harbor? If we're in a
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shipping lane it could be very bad if one of those tankers comes along in the
fog and rams us." Never mind a tanker, a collision with a small tugboat would
probably sink us just as effectively.
Zotz continued to fiddle with the settings and abruptly gave the monitor a
couple of smacks with the palm of his "hand".
"Whoa there, Chief! Don't break the navigator!"
"That would be redundant," he grumped. "It's already broken. According to
this we're in New Orleans."
"Yeah. You just said "
"No, according to this thing we arein New Orleans. Downtown, just off the
Mississippi River, in fact."
"What? You're telling me that we've run aground?"
"Does it feel like we've run aground?" The fog was thinning a bit and I could
see the frustration on his half-human features more clearly now as consulted
the screen. More than that, I could feel the movement of the deck beneath my
feet as theNew Moon rode a swell of water, the motion indicating a current and
cross motion simultaneously working at our hull.
"This piece o'crap . . . high tech . . . scrap . . . places us just beyond
the North bank of the Mississippi River, at the apex of Canal and Common
Streets!" His mutterings devolved into creative juxtapositions of profanity
and technology reviews.
"Zotz," I said slowly, "turn on the fish finders . . ."
His tirade never lost its rhythm or intensity as he flipped the appropriate
switches. At least until the screens lit up. "What's this? Test patterns?"
The fish finder screens were displaying an odd assortment of geometric
patterns.
Storm surge, I thought, my blood suddenly running cold. We didn't beat the
hurricane, it had arrived first. And, unless we were in the relative and
momentary calm of the "eye", it had already passed by. Some flooding would
have been inevitable: the Big Muddy would be bigger and a lot muddier.
"It looks like a dump down there," Zotz said as he attempted to fine-tune the
transponder settings. "I mean, I've got outlines and silhouettes that are
definitely man-made: angles, corners, symmetrical configurations . . ."
Looking down he didn't notice that the breeze was starting to tear holes in
the fog. "What is that? A car?"
Through one of those tentative gaps I could see the New Orleans' World Trade
Center just a block or two behind us aft I needed to remember my nautical
terms, anything to hold on to a sense of perspective in the face of what was
appearing through the vanishing mists.
Because my perspective was all screwed up. By the fog, by the water.
By the dawning realization of our likely position.
Nearly a dozen other "tall" buildings of the downtown and warehouse districts
were appearing around us, now, and fanning out northward: The Wyndam at Canal
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Place, the Mariott, One Shell Plaza, Capitol One Tower, the Riverside Hilton,
Place St. Charles, the Plaza Tower, Energy Center, National American Bank,
Harrah's Hotel, the Sheraton, LL&E Tower, Pan American Life Building, and
Tidewater Place . . . all looking strangely familiar and utterly alien at the
same time. Two things were wrong with this picture and I recognized both
almost simultaneously. We were drifting farther uptown into the middle of the
city's geographical arrangement of its high-rise real estate. And all of these
landmarks were shorter than usual.
Their first fifteen stories or more were missing.
Those floors and the rest of the city were gone, hidden beneath an inland sea
of grey-green water that stretched from here to the visible horizon.
Louisiana had a brand new coastline somewhere else, many miles to the north.
New Orleans had become the New Atlantis!
Chapter Sixteen
What do you say when you're suddenly confronted with an ocean where a half a
million people lived?
And it wasn't just a living population swallowed up and gone but some four
centuries of history, culture, and tradition.
The music was hushed now. It didn't matter that Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll
Morton, King Oliver, and Louis Armstrong were already gone and their
recordings would live on. And hopefully the still-living greats had evacuated
in time those that weren't out on the road and already on tour. But there were
too many that were old or blind or practically lame, now. Too many too
stubborn or too poor to leave for just another storm. And what about
Preservation Hall? Tipitina's? The Funky Butt at Congo Square, Donna's, the
Rock'N'Bowl, the Palm Court, Fritzel's, and Snug Harbor? Hell, forget
individual venues, New Orleans wasThe Source . Say what you will about the
Jazz scene in Chicago or Kansas City but that all came later and never had the
cultural kaleidoscope of diversity or fresh-off-the-boat inventiveness or
aged-in-the-wooden-barrel-house history sounds of New Orleans music.
Go to a hundred towns and cities in Louisiana and you'll find a hundred Mardi [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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