Chapter 7
“Eat the rich. Eat the rich. Eat the rich…”
The chant, distant yet close, poured into my eardrums along with a mishmash of other sounds. The odors of sweat, cinders, garbage, and electricity flooded my nostrils. The air was hot and full of vibrant lunacy.
“There’s something about a riot,” Graham said, “that makes me want to start breaking stuff.”
I knew the feeling. I suppose we all have that temptation inside of us, somewhere deep down. That barely-controlled desire to light civilization aflame and dance on its ruins with ridiculous glee.
I glanced down the enormous staircase connecting the Explorers Society to E. 80th Street. A couple of rioters climbed the steps at a methodic pace. Their bodies, dressed in black clothing and shrouded in shadows, blended into the darkness. They looked like ghostly apparitions, fading in and out of the material world.
While on remote digs, I always carried my machete at my side. However, this was New York City. One didn’t just walk down the streets sporting a long blade. Not without causing an army of trust-fund babies to faint behind their bodyguards anyway.
I was weaponless, but far from helpless. As the rioters drew close, my fingers curled together, forming fists. But the rioters — clean-cut white men of roughly college-age — weren’t interested in me or Graham. Instead, they strode right past us.
Two rioters went for the doors, pounding them and screaming drunken threats. “Open up,” one rioter screamed. “So we can kill you.”
“Open up so we can kill you?” Graham rubbed his one good eye. “He can’t really expect that to work.”
“What if Keith is near the door?”
“Okay, maybe it could work.”
Meanwhile, other rioters attempted to scale the white marble exterior, evidently targeting the colossal faces of famous explorers that stood watch over the street. But they kept slipping on the slick surface, only to come crashing back to the ground. They looked like people wiping out on vertical treadmills.
“Eat the rich,” the distant chant continued. “Eat the rich. Eat the rich…”
I stole a look at my satphone. 8:26 p.m. Fifty-four minutes to go.
Graham steered a weaving path to the street and I followed suit. A few empty cars were parked haphazardly on the asphalt. Rioters attacked them with relish, scraping away at the paintjobs and ripping out sound systems and GPS devices.
“That’s odd,” I said.
“Odd? All of this…” Graham belched, drawing admiring looks from nearby rioters. “What was I… oh yeah, you call this odd? Because I call it…” He trailed off.
“Yeah, that’s a great description,” I remarked. “Anyway I’m not talking about the riot. I’m talking about this street. It’s normally jam-packed with cars. But now, it’s mostly empty. It’s like the drivers knew this was coming.”
“Lucky them. So, why are we here and not getting hammered backstage?”
“Someone kidnapped Beverly.”
The bleariness melted away. “Who?”
“She calls herself Malware. If I don’t help her get what she wants, she says she’ll kill Beverly.”
“What does she want?”
“An excavation. I’m supposed to go to 1199 Madison Avenue, at the corner of 75th. I’ve got a little less than an hour to get there.”
“I doubt we’ll get much help from the police,” he remarked as a group of rioters ran past us. They were naked from the waist down and screaming drunken nonsense at inanimate objects.
“Do we ever?”
“Fair point.”
“One more thing. Malware’s some kind of computer genius. She hacked my satphone, probably yours too. In fact, I bet she’s listening to us at this very moment.”
“Yeah? I’ve got something for her.” He reared back and belched even louder. When he was done, he wiped his lips and pulled out his phone. “I guess I should ditch this, huh?”
I shook my head. “Hold on to it. We need to be able to communicate with her and each other.”
Turning west, I strode down E. 80th Street. Just ahead, I saw Madison Avenue and ever-growing mayhem. People smashing windows and attacking gated storefronts. People tearing up the asphalt and ripping down street signs. People scaling metal poles, their hungry eyes fixed upon blinking traffic lights.
The rioters came in all shapes, sizes, and colors. There were more men than women, but the differential wasn’t much. I only noticed two consistent features. First, the rioters looked well-kept. And second, they were, by and large, rather young. Late teens and early twenties.
In other words, they were exactly like all those other rioters that had plagued American cities these last three months. The media, always eager to put a name on things, had dubbed them the Berserkers. At least they didn’t refer to the riots as Berserker-mageddon or Berserker-pocalpyse.
The Berserkers seemed, as their moniker implied, insane. But there was a motive behind the madness. Manhattan’s youth — hell, youth all over the country — had been sold a pack of lies. You’re special, they’d been told. You can do anything! And so an entire generation had grown up with the greatest of expectations, each Berserker believing he or she — and only he or she — was cut out for a monumental life.
The Berserkers didn’t want steady, boring jobs. They wanted fulfilling work that would make them the envy of their peers. And they didn’t want to spend decades climbing the corporate ladder. They wanted immediate prosperity and respect.
But the world didn’t work that way. For the vast majority of Berserkers, reality failed to live up to expectations. Even worse, they faced constant reminders of this on social media. Presented with a never-ending stream of self-indulgent posts, they couldn’t help but feel quietly inadequate. Like everyone was winning at life but them.
As I eased myself into the thick of the riot, a tall man bumped into me. He wore a ski mask and smelled faintly of expensive vodka. His attire, ripped and ragged clothing, didn’t mesh at all with his bronzed skin and manicured nails.
He cast me a nasty look. “You wore a tux to a riot? That’s an epic fail, rich boy.”
“Yeah, just like your dad’s condom,” I retorted as I hiked past him and around an abandoned taxicab. A small group of dudes, outfitted in matching jackets, were dousing it with urine. The distant chant—“Eat the rich. Eat the rich. Eat the rich…”—gained volume.
Of course, sky-high expectations weren’t the only problem. College costs had skyrocketed over the years and even those with well-paying jobs were bogged down in debt. At the same time, Berserkers were starting to question things like Social Security and Medicare. They were putting far more into those programs than they would ever get back. This was exacerbated by the fact that the elderly were in good financial shape. Bottom line, poor Berserkers were being forced to subsidize rich older folks. So, yeah.
The Berserkers had reasons to riot.
“Hey rich boy.” The voice was soft. Deadly. And right in my ear.
I turned around. Saw the masked man, backed by a small group of followers. They wore masks as well and stank of the same expensive vodka. Graham, still tipsy, hung back, lurking behind them like some kind of alcoholic angel of vengeance.
“Oh, I’m gonna enjoy this.” The masked man smacked his fist into his palm. “Ready to feel the pain, rich boy?”
I didn’t have time for this. “Why? Are you going to make me look at your face?”
Cackles and hoots of laughter rang out. The masked man whirled around, stared his followers down.