Apocalypse - Keith R. A. DeCandido [7]
Don’t worry about the dot-com collapse, Mike had said.
Don’t worry about the Silicon Alley downsizing, Mike had said.
Don’t worry about our diminishing customer base, Mike had said.
Don’t worry about me stealing what few profits we have left and haring off to some foreign country, leaving you to face the music, Mike most assuredly hadn’t said.
He might as well have, since Jeremy hadn’t worried about it, and it had happened.
Broke, ruined, his face in the pages of BusinessWeek as another casualty of the new millennium’s economic downturn, Jeremy had returned to his hometown of Raccoon City.
A year ago, he’d been a big-ass tycoon. He had a staff, he had a beautiful apartment with a view, he had a girlfriend named Shawna with big tits, no brains, and an insatiable sexual appetite.
Then Mike had disappeared, along with the money, and Jeremy lost, in rapid-fire succession, the staff, the apartment, and the girlfriend. Or maybe he lost Shawna before the apartment. It had all happened so fast. At least he hadn’t been dumb enough to ask Shawna to marry him.
Now he was another lame-ass business failure, living at home with Mommy and Daddy and reduced to driving his younger brother to crew practice at the crack of fucking dawn. All things considered, he could hardly have said no when his parents asked him to take Greg. They were, after all, letting him live rent-free in the house, eating their food, drinking their booze (drinking a lot of their booze), and taking up space in the house.
Still, things were looking up—or at least not looking down. He had an interview set up with Umbrella’s human resources department. It had taken him a month just to get the HR interview—for some reason, the country’s largest supplier of computer technology didn’t see a man whose most recent foray into that field had ended with bankruptcy and indictments as a hot commodity—but he had it later this afternoon.
Which was why he wanted to get Greg to crew practice and get some more sleep.
Of course, if he hadn’t insisted on staying up until 2 A.M. watching crappy movies on cable and depleting Mom’s supply of tequila, getting up to drive Greg to crew might not have been so onerous.
But what the fuck else did he have to do with his life?
“Why’d they call it Ravens’ Gate?” Greg asked. “I mean, it’s not like it’s a gate, really.”
“Sure it is. It’s the gateway to this side of the river and it’s full of ravens.” He smiled. “ ’Sides, they wanted to call it Ravens’ Haven, but the city council said that sounded dumb.”
“No, they didn’t.”
“What, you don’t believe me?”
“No.”
“Then why’d you ask me in the first place?”
“ ’Cause I’m bored.”
“So I gotta be bored, too?”
“Whatever.”
Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief as he went through the tollbooth and the sign indicated that his parents’ FreePass had enough money on it to allow him onto the bridge. Greg saying “Whatever” generally signaled an end to the conversation. Since Jeremy hadn’t wanted it to start in the first place…
It was still early enough that few drivers were on the bridge. Past the tollbooth, the cars spread out as they achieved whatever cruising speed they preferred, making the bridge look deserted. Within twenty minutes or so, the commuters would start pouring onto the bridge in force and then it would become a still-life in vehicles.
Probably mostly SUVs, because, after all, you needed a fucking off-road vehicle to get from your fancy house to your downtown office….
Like those guys.
Jeremy blinked.
What the hell—?
Just as he noticed them in the rearview mirror, Greg asked, “What’s that noise?”
Greg’s window was rolled down—the AC had long since died, and Jeremy really wasn’t in a financial position to have it fixed—so he stuck his head out and looked up. “There’s a black helicopter back there! Betcha they’re from Area 51.”
“Area 51’s in New Mexico, wiseass.”
“I’m gonna tell Mommy you said ‘ass.’ ”
Jeremy looked again at the rearview mirror—there looked to be over a dozen black SUVs zipping across the bridge going at least seventy.
“I’m a grown-up, Greg, I