The sky remained blank and unresponsive. The birds were still clamoring in the trees. Lavalle went back inside, washed her face, and sat in front of the holo again. A talking head was saying, " ...rising into the sky. In Paris, the Sainte-Chap-Sainte-Chapelle- And I can't go on. I'm sorry. " He walked off.
The holo flickered, and a woman's smiling face appeared.
"This is COSAI , speaking to you by simulation from Bethesda, Maryland. I have been asked to take over this function because the human beings whom you recently heard are too distressed to do so. By the way, I myself am not capable of feeling true emotion, but to the limited extent of which I am capable, I deeply regret that all life on Earth is now in the process of being destroyed."
The simulation smiled. "However, those of us who are left will be able to witness some part of a unique event, and we should take whatever comfort we can from that. To resume: It is apparent that the zone of destruction is advancing in a straight line from the surface of the planet beginning at the location of Shanghai, directly toward the center of the Earth; therefore, as this zone moves at a constant speed of approximately one hundred sixty miles an hour, the apparent speed at the surface varies according to the curvature of the Earth."
In the screen behind her, a simulation of the planet appeared. It was transparent, and a portion of it centered on Shanghai was darkened as if with smoke.
"You see here that during the first hour of the advance, the zone appeared to travel some twelve hundred miles from its starting point, but its apparent or surface speed is now much slower, not more than eight hundred miles an hour at the present moment. By the time it reaches the halfway point, it will be traveling slower still; then it will speed up again, and when it finally reaches the other side of the Earth, it will again appear to be traveling quite rapidly.
"An interesting point is the apparent tilt of the plane of destruction which many observers have noticed. This, of course, is an illusion caused by the curvature of the Earth. The plane is, as far as we can determine, absolutely perpendicular to the line of its travel, but because we observe it from the curved surface of our planet, it appears to be tilted toward us. When it reaches the halfway point, it will naturally appear to be vertical; beyond that point, it will again appear to tilt, but in the opposite direction. Here is an interesting clip made by a cameraperson who was in a helicopter over Changsha at the time it was destroyed."
Above the black cloud of smoke and dust a gray tilted wall was advancing in slow motion toward the camera. For an instant it came into sharp focus, and the patterning of the surface was visible: oval or circular spots of various sizes, like the spots in polished granite, drifted gently downward in the helicopter's searchlight. Then the moment was lost; the view went black.
Lavalle played this sequence over and over again. Each time it seemed to her that there was some meaning in the pattern, something she could decipher if only she had another second.
She tried to call Sylvia, Ed, even her parents. All the circuits were busy, of course. After Quezon went, Tokyo was next, then Hanoi, Bangkok, Kathmandu, and Rangoon. COSAI provided a constantly updated simulation showing exactly how far the zone of destruction had advanced and how fast it was moving. A little before eight, New Delhi was destroyed, and shortly afterward it was Anchorage's tum.
She didn't sleep, but by noon of the second day she was dozing off intermittently, and could not recall whether she had noticed the destruction of London, Bern, and Canberra. She missed New York at three in the morning. Mexico City went five hours later, and then it was Bogota and Caracas. Four hours after that, she saw the destruction sweep over Buenos Aires. COSAI was gone, but she knew there couldn't be much time left. She went down the ladder and stood in the yard looking at a jacaranda tree.
The tree expressed itself through stem, branch, twig, and leaf, all in perfect balance and harmony. Every leaf in the light was glossy green, bright-edged. It was possible for her to love the tree, and to believe the tree loved her.
In that moment, as the wall loomed over the horizon and swept toward her, she opened her mouth to speak the last two words uttered on Earth:
"Oh, God!"