THE WALL
By Bill Vaughan

* * * *

AN ELECTRIC CAR ROLLS north on the East Side Highway. It slows, pulls into the breakdown lane, right side close to the Wall, and stops next to a storm drain. In the car is a driver and three passengers. 

The driver is called Carrie Nation. She gets out of the car and raises the hood. One of the passengers, a big man called Pancho Villa, opens the rear passenger-side door and goes to the trunk. He strains to lift out a heavy toolbox. 

Carrie Nation’s green skirt blows and flutters in the hot damp breeze that descends the slope of the Wall from far above. Sweat springs to her brow as she props up the hood. She loosens the collar of her white blouse, rolls up her sleeves, and bends to look into the engine compartment. 

Now the front door opens, bangs against the Wall as cars roar past. A young stream of dirty water continues in its course along the base of the Wall, running under the open car door, and trickles through a large grating into the storm drain. 

The front-seat passenger, called Nikolai Lenin, crawls out of the car, keeping his head down. Nikolai Lenin is small and wiry. The car conceals him from the road, the open doors hide him from in front and behind. Only from the top of the Wall, two hundred feet above, might he be seen. He crouches and fumbles with the storm drain’s grating, as Carrie Nation putters under the hood. 

Nikolai Lenin, Carrie Nation, and Pancho Villa form cell 34-D of the Marine Mammals Liberation Army. Along with one Leo Bugleman, who remains in the car, they intend to breach the Wall Around Manhattan and let in the sea. 

Yesterday was Friday. 

Over the bass monotone of the great pumps, the alarm clock shrilled. Across the room, Leo Bugleman awoke. He got out of bed, stumbled sleepily to the clock, silenced it with a slap. The kettle was already on the stove. Leo turned on the fire under it and made his way to the bathroom. 

The pumps thrummed. The toilet flushed. The shower ran, then the sink. The kettle boiled. Leo emerged from the bathroom, his feet a little steadier now. There was still a blob of lather behind his left ear. He poured boiling water on coffee grounds and dressed as he waited for it to drip. 

Buttoning his shirt, Leo stood before his window. It looked east, across Avenue D. Leo sneered out at the Wall. 

The Wall was tall and ugly. As high as Leo could see, it was streaked white with seagull droppings, brown with rust, black with the exhalations of a billion diesel trucks. Trickles of dirty water ran down it, joining in polluted rivulets at the base. 

Leo tucked his maroon tie between the second and third buttons of his blue shirt, shrugged on his uniform jacket (size forty-four short), swilled a cup of coffee. His eyes never left the Wall. Finally he glanced at his watch, grabbed his cap, and headed for the door. 

Down three flights and out to the street. Leo hesitated at the front door, brushed back his thinning brown hair, put on his cap, made sure his earplugs were in. He opened the door, and winced as the sound of the pumps struck him. 

The hot Wall breeze had not yet begun, it was chilly and damp in the Wall’s shadow. A stream flowed down Avenue D, rushing into the drains at the corner of Seventh Street. Leo’s nose wrinkled as he hurried past it. His lips moved as he chanted a sing-song litany, inaudible over the pumps: 

“God damn Wall. 

“Bastard Wall. 

“God damn, son of a bitch, bastard Wall.” 

Pancho Villa sets the toolbox on the concrete by the open rear door and gets back in the car. He leaves the door open. 

Between the doors, the grating comes loose. Nikolai Lenin shoves it aside and climbs down into the storm drain. 

A patrol car pulls up, an old-fashioned methanol burner, stinking of formaldehyde. A policeman sticks his head out the window. 

“Y’ wanna move that heap right now, lady, or I’ll call the wrecker.” 

“Just a minute, officer. I think I’ve got it.” Carrie Nation fiddles under the hood, gets back in the driver’s seat. Meanwhile, Leo Bugleman crawls out of the car and disappears into the storm drain. 

The patrol car pulls up in front of the electric, as Carrie Nation tries the motor. It hums to life. The policeman approaches, swaggering a little. Carrie gets out of the car and meets him halfway. She shows him her driver’s license; the name on it is not “Carrie Nation.” Her blouse buttons have come open; perhaps she shows him other things. In any case, he does not see Pancho Villa crawl out of the car. 

“No problem, officer,” says Carrie. “Bad connection to the superconductor. It’s fixed.” She goes to the hood, closes it. It doesn’t quite catch. She raises the hood again and slams it, as Pancho muscles the toolbox into the storm drain and drops down after it. From below, several hands pull the grating back in place. 

Carrie Nation saunters around the car, closing doors. She gets back in the driver’s seat, revs the engine. Preceded by the patrol car, she pulls out into traffic, leaving three men and a heavy toolbox in a storm drain that runs beneath the Wall. 

It was nearly nine. 

At Fourth Street, Leo Bugleman crossed Avenue D and hurried into a building that grew out of the Wall. An elevator took him up twenty stories, to the top. 

The elevator opened onto a broad plaza. Here it was bright and warm. You could hardly hear the pumps. Crowds of tourists were beginning to gather, gawking in all directions. 

To the east, the ocean was blue-green and clear. Breakers roared over the shattered towers of Brooklyn and Queens. On the horizon stood the Long Islands and the tan sails of the fishing fleet. 

To the west was Manhattan, looking much as it had for the last hundred years. The Wall wasn’t tall, next to the skyscrapers of Downtown and Midtown — it was easy to ignore. 

To the south, seagulls wheeled over the docks by the New Fulton Fish Market. It wasn’t new, and it wasn’t too close to Fulton Street some two hundred feet below, but that’s what they called it. 

Leo saw none of this. He glanced at his watch and hurried across the plaza to the Tourist Information Center. Adjusting his cap, he entered by the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. 

The emblem on his cap read: 

Port Authority of the City of New York TOUR GUIDE

The first tours of the Wall were about to start. 

The tunnel is dark and cramped. Pancho Villa and Leo Bugleman lug the toolbox while Nikolai Lenin goes ahead and scouts. Pancho is taller than Leo and has to duck under conduits to keep from hitting his head. The stream of water at their feet is shallow. It burbles and chuckles, following the drain’s gentle downward slope under the Wall, toward the sea. 

Nikolai comes back. “It’s all right down to the cross tunnel. Come on.” He speaks with that accent once called “Brooklyn” or “Joisey.” But Brooklyn is drowned now, and so is much of New Jersey. It always was a New York accent — now New Yorkers must admit it. 

Leo and Pancho hurry, as well as they can, to the cross tunnel. It is a maintenance tunnel, seldom used. It is relatively dry. 

“This goddam nuke is heavy,” complains Leo, setting his end down. “At least we’re out of the water.” 

“You’re soft,” says Pancho. “I tote industrial equipment all the time. This ain’t no worse.” Pancho Villa is muscular. His grandparents came illegally from lost Trinidad, but his speech does not betray them. 

“Ain’t much plutonium in a nuke,” says Nikolai. “Mostly steel and plastique. That piece of plutonium’s about the size of a — you know —a grapefruit. You remember grapefruit, Leo?” 

“Seen one once,” says Leo. “Macy’s had some in from California. Expensive.” He picks up his end of the nuke again, and the three continue down the tunnel. 

Leo’s first group was from somewhere near Cleveland. They looked wealthy. And bored, as Leo went mechanically through his spiel. At least they all spoke English. Leo could deliver his talk in memorized French, Spanish, and Japanese, but ridding questions was hard. And if you didn’t answer questions, you didn’t get good tips. 

As usual, the children asked most of the questions. 

“What’s all that water running down the Wall? Is it leaking?” 

“No,” said Leo for the ten thousandth time, “it’s condensation. The Wall is cool, especially near the top where it’s thin, because the ocean water is cold.” He leaned to pat the kid — an ugly little girl of about five — on the head. 

“No, it isn’t,” said the tyke, pulling away from Leo. “We swimmed in the ocean at Trenton. It was warm.” 

“And then we got in the boat and sailed over Philadelphia,” piped up a little boy. “It was neat, like that,” he said, pointing to Brooklyn. 

“Is that Philadelphia?” said the little girl. “I wanna go in the boat again, Mommy.” She started to sniffle and whine. Her parents looked annoyed. Leo mentally kissed his tip goodbye. 

“Like Philadelphia, Boston, and other coastal cities,” he said, gamely continuing his spiel, “Brooklyn was abandoned as the Atlantic Ocean rose during the middle of the last century. Manhattan was spared only by chance.” 

“Didn’t they build the Wall on purpose?” heckled a teenager from the back of the crowd. 

Ignoring the heckler, Leo continued. “The Wall is almost thirty miles long. The sea water is, on average, one hundred ninety feet deep, and presses on the Wall with a total force of ninety million tons.” No effect. The numbers usually got a rise out of the techno-weenier, but there didn’t seem to be any today. 

Leo led his group to the inside edge of the Wall. Near the railing, a life-sized statue of a man looked out over the Lower East Side. The statue was gaudy — green with patina, black and white with pigeon and seagull droppings. Its arms were raised as if in blessing, or victory. On its head was a spot of bright polished bronze. 

“This is Christophe O’Flanagan,” said Leo, “the Mayor’s Haitian-Irish astrologer. In 2027, during the Saint Patrick’s Day parade, he had a vision. He said the sea would rise thirty feet. The experts laughed —three feet, they said, maybe six, no more. But New Yorkers believed O’Flanagan — that’s what things were like in the Twenties. Then, when the Antarctic ice cap began to slide into the sea — against all predictions — the Wall was already started. For fifty years our heroic engineers worked on it, keeping just ahead of the rising water. At two hundred feet, they stopped.” Leo paused. “So did the sea -we hope.” 

No reaction. Most of the tourists were just looking at the ocean, enjoying the Wall weather. 

“This is supposed to be good luck,” said Leo. He reached over and patted the statue on the head, on the shiny spot. Some of the tourists did the same. 

“I wanna pet the statue,” said the little girl. Leo lifted her, held her out. The little girl waved a hand and hit the statue on the nose, on a fresh seagull dropping. “Ewww, yucky!” she said, wiping her hand on Leo’s coat. 

THE PUMPS are louder now. Pancho and Leo have successfully navigated the cross tunnel. Now Nikolai points to a ladder descending into blackness. 

“Old subway tunnel,” he says. “Use your earplugs. Hand signals from here on.” 

Wearing miners’ lamps, they descend, lugging the toolbox. The subway tracks are gone; the tunnel floor is a torrent, water rushing toward the pumps below the East River. 

(They still call it the East River, that piece of the Atlantic between the Wall and the broken teeth of Brooklyn, where the draggled cobweb of the Brooklyn Bridge lies in wait to snare unwary ships.) 

Along the tunnel’s wall runs a catwalk, safely clear of the rushing water. The three men and the nuke edge along it until they are well under the Wall. 

At noon, on his lunch break, Leo went down to Embassy Row. It was the first Friday of the month. He was making his rounds. 

The sun had cleared the Wall (“God damn Wall,” said Leo), and the embassy gardens shone with sunlight. Leo slowed down for a moment to look at the flowers. 

From the street vendor at the corner of Sutton Place, Leo got a soft pretzel and a hot dog. Wolfing them down, he hurried into the New Jersey embassy. He didn’t need to look at the lobby signboard, but went straight to the visa office. 

He pushed his papers across the counter. “Bugleman, Leo. I have an appointment.” 

“Yes, Mr. Bugleman.” The clerk looked like a New Yorker, but she spoke without a trace of New York accent. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you.” 

“But . . . I thought I was near the top of the waiting list.” 

“You are, Mr. Bugleman. You’re number twenty-three. In your category. But New Jersey doesn’t need civil or mechanical engineers right now.” 

Or tour guides, thought Leo, or physicists. “Well, what do you need? I can take more night courses . . . “ 

“Well, Mr. Bugleman, if you had, say, a Ph.D. in biomechanical engineering with a specialty in pseudoviral turboencabulation, you would be eligible for Preference Category VII-A[1]. On the other hand, pharmacological statisticians are, you’ll pardon me, a drug on the market.” She tittered offensively. “Here is a list of the current preference categories. It’s good to the end of the month.” 

Leo took the list — it wasn’t long— and glanced at it. His fist clenched, crumpling the comer of the paper. But he smiled and said “thank you,” just the same. 

Nikolai has been scouting ahead again. Now he returns. Silently, he motions Pancho and Leo to stop. They set the nuclear toolbox down. It clangs loudly on the catwalk. 

“What is it?” Pancho shouts to be heard over the pumps. 

Nikolai approaches, huddles with Pancho and Leo. “Maintenance crew. Maybe comin’ this way. Be quiet.” 

The catwalk is exposed. There is no place to hide. They turn off their miners’ lamps and sit by the nuke, in the dark. It does not glow, but there seems to be a glow far off in the tunnel. 

They wait. After a long time, the glow brightens, resolves into two glows, bobbing in the darkness, approaching. 

The water rushes, the pumps roar. Yet the three men sit unmoving, as if their slightest movement would be heard. Leo is hunched together, arms around his knees, head down. Pancho presses against the wall. 

Nikolai has a gun, a revolver. Its blued steel is black in the dim light of the oncoming miners’ lamps. 

Nikolai leans back to the others. He motions to his ears. They remove their earplugs. Leo winces. “Wait till they get close,” says Nikolai. “Then we take ‘em. Throw the bodies in the water.” He goes back to watching the distant lights. 

Leo shudders as he reinserts his earplugs. 

The lights continue to approach. But there is something odd. They don’t seem to be coming straight on anymore. 

Leo taps Pancho’s shoulder, leans forward and taps Nikolai. “The other catwalk,” he says. “They’re on the other side.” 

The maintenance workers approach. Indeed, they are on the other side of the tunnel. The three men and the bomb sit still and silent as the maintenance crew goes past. Once, one of the circles of light scans the water, crosses it, caresses the wall not twenty feet from them. It lingers, then returns. The three men release their breaths in chorus. The nuke remains placid. 

After an eternity or two, the maintenance crew is out of sight. Leo, Nikolai, and Pancho get up and turn on their miners’ lamps. 

“Jesus,” says Leo, “Jesus.” 

“Jesus? I thought you was Jewish,” says Pancho. 

In the last group of the day, there was a chatty blue-haired lady from Sun City, Arizona. “You must love it here,” she said. “The weather’s wonderful. Everywhere else it’s so hot and muggy.” 

That did it for Leo. “You like it, huh?” he said. “Nice cool sea breeze. That’s Wall weather, lady. That’s what makes it Hell down there.” He pointed down, toward the base of the Wall. 

The tourist shrank from the energy in Leo’s voice. Leo didn’t notice. He continued: “That nice cool breeze drops right down the Wall. Picking up steam. Picking up heat. That’s freshman physics for you, lady.” Leo had taken enough night courses for a Master’s. “It’s cool up here, but it’s plenty hot and muggy down there.” Leo waved vaguely in the direction of his apartment building. “We don’t all stay at the Wall Hilton, lady. Some of us have to live next door to this thing.” Leo kicked at the Wall with his heel. 

“Well!” said the tourist. “I never! Your superiors are going to hear about this, Mr. — “ She peered at his badge. “Mr. Bugleman.” She pronounced it “bug lemon.” 

“I’ll tell you what, lady, you can tell them anything you please.” Leo loosened his tie. “because I don’t really give a rat’s ass.” He took off his cap. “I don’t give a flying fuck for the Port Authority, and they can KEEP THEIR GOD 

DAMN WALL!” Leo skimmed his cap like a Frisbee, over the railing, toward the street below. It landed in the bus lane, where it was promptly run over. 

Leo didn’t even bother to sign out. He took the elevator to the street and went straight to O’Flanagan’s Bar. 

“This is the spot,” says Leo. They are in a disused subway station, deep under the Wall. The pumps are not so noisy here, and there is not so much water. They can talk. 

“It better be,” says Pancho. “We’ve lugged this thing far enough.” They set the nuke down, none too gently. 

“This is it,” said Leo. “I know everything about the Wall. Its strong points, its weak points. This is a weak point. Maybe the weakest.” 

Pancho and Leo sit down by the bomb. Nikolai is scouting the stairwells, and the places where the escalators used to be. 

“You hate the Wall,” says Pancho. “How come you know so much about it?” 

“I used to love the Wall,” says Leo. “When I was a kid, they were still building it.” He smiles. “They were my heroes — the Wall engineers. I wanted to be one. I wanted to help make the wonders of the post-modern world, the newer Colossus, to replace the Statue of Liberty. And then they went broke.” 

Pancho shrugs. “We still got the Wall. So what if we don’t build nothing else. Who needs it?” 

“I need it,” says Leo. “I studied civil engineering, I studied mechanical engineering, I studied freaking physics of materials, so when they started up again, I could be part of it. For half a century, New York was Number One in construction, and now what have we got? Fifty thousand unemployed engineers, is what.” 

“So,” says Pancho. He seems to be trying to think. “What do you get from this?” He gestures at the bomb. “You think they’re gonna rebuild after we set this off? You think they’re gonna hire you? Sure— hire Leo, the Mad Bomber.” Pancho laughs. “Shit, there ain’t gonna be any New York after we set this off. Just two hundred feet of water and a lot of dead citizens.” 

“Screw the Wall,” says Leo. “I’m sick of New York, sick of the Goddamn Wall. I’ll take any job I can find, in California, after we get away. This bastard” (he gestures at the Wall around him) “has burned me out. That’s all.” 

O’Flanagan’s wasn’t crowded at four in the afternoon. Leo looked around the place as if he had never been there before. The holos of the Wall under construction used to make him nostalgic; now they filled him with bile. He wanted to yell at the big bust of Christophe O’Flanagan behind the bar. 

You asshole, Leo thought, what kind of drugs were you on at that parade? Why make us waste our future? Why build that prison Wall? 

Come to think of it, the whole bar was a pain in the ass. The Twenties decor — all shades of olive and red, with little Gothic spires on the booths, and twin laser chandeliers — was enough to drive you to drink. Maybe that was the idea. Leo ordered another. 

Six o’clock came. The bar began to fill with the after-work crowd. Leo nibbled on bar snacks, waiting. There was someone he needed to see. 

Finally she arrived. His old friend Shirley Green. Green Shirley, they called her back at CUNY. Here she was with her radical friends, the porpoise freaks. Leo smiled and walked over to their table. 

“Hiya, Shirley. How ya doin’? Can I sit down?” Without waiting for an answer, Leo pulled up a fourth chair. 

“Jeeze, Leo, don’t call me Shirley. Carrie Nation— that’s my code name. You know Pancho and Nikolai.” 

“Yeah, well, code name or not, you’re Shirley to me. Anyhow, this is business.” 

“Bullshit, Leo. You’re drunk. Why don’t you go away — something’s come up, we’re making serious plans.” 

“Maybe you should listen to me first,” said Leo. “You remember that project we talked about, the one you keep trying to suck me into?” 

“Oh, yeah,” said Shirley. “Using the weak spot in — mmmph.” Nikolai had reached across the table and put his hand over Shirley’s mouth. 

“Don’t say it,” said Nikolai. “We know what he’s talkin’ about.” 

“I’ve made up my mind,” said Leo. “If you can get me out of New York afterward, I’m in.” 

“Wow! How totally germane!” said Shirley. 

Nikolai comes back, swaggering from his inspection tour. “Nobody,” he says, “like we thought. They think we don’t know their secret weakness, so they don’t guard it.” He takes one end of the toolbox and drags it to the center of the platform. 

“Shit, Nikolai, it’s a nuke,” says Pancho. “It don’t matter where you put it. Set it up and let’s get out of here.” 

Nikolai looks left and right, drags the bomb another few inches. He pulls out a key, unlocks the toolbox, and raises the lid. Instead of tools, there is a steel panel. On it, two switches and a dial are labeled in Hebrew. Nikolai flips the switches. 

Pancho has been looking at the bomb. “So that’s where this came from. Christ, it must be old. You think it will work?” 

Leo speaks up. “Plutonium bomb — it’ll work for hundreds of years. Doesn’t need tritium.” He glares at Nikolai. “This came from Dimona. It can’t be clean. We’re fucking radioactive. You son of a bitch.” 

“Radioactive? Not much,” says Nikolai. “Takes over a week to get a lethal dose. It’s the cause that matters. We must avenge the whales.” He pulls a small box from his shirt pocket. It looks like an old-fashioned calculator. 

“I don’t give a damn about your cause,” says Leo. “I want to get out of New York. And if nuking the Goddamn Wall is what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. But the whales are dead, along with the tuna and the freaking anchovies. You can’t bring them back.” 

“And you can’t bring back the glory days of New York,” says Nikolai. “No more than your grandfathers could bring back the space program, or their grandfathers the railroads.” He punches buttons on the little box. 

Pancho speaks. “We can’t bring ‘em back, but we can take revenge.” Nikolai stops pressing buttons and looks up. “It is programmed. Nothing can stop us now.” He places one foot on the bomb. “The whales are dead. Their spirits cry for vengeance.” He spreads his arms and shouts, “Now we liberate them! Our —” He hesitates, pulls a white card from his shirt pocket, shines his lamp on it. “Our auto-da-fe will free those spirits forever! Let the sea claim New York, as is its due!” 

He turns to Pancho. “Did you get that, or shall I do it again?” 

Pancho puts a microcam back in his pocket. “I got it. Let’s get out of here.” 

Leo approaches Nikolai. He points to the little box. “Is that the detonator?” 

“Yeah,” says Nikolai. “This sends the code sequence to set it off. It goes at five tomorrow morning. By then we’ll be in California.” 

“What if we’re not?” asks Leo. “What if the boat doesn’t come?” 

“I can reprogram it,” says Nikolai. “And if we’re caught, I can detonate it instantly.” He indicates a recessed red button on the box. “Now. We go back the way we came?” 

Leo pulls out a pocket computer, punches some keys. Nothing seems to happen. He looks nervous, mutters “Goddamn Wall,” punches more keys. A blueprint of the Wall appears on his screen. He studies it for a moment. 

“Yes,” says Leo. “It’s the only way.” 

Leo left the bar smiling. They had bought it — he was in. 

He smiled as he walked toward his apartment. Nuke the Goddamn Wall. What a sight. He closed his eyes and saw the nuke go off—the hundred-meter hole at the Wall’s weakest point — stress fractures racing around Manhattan at the speed of sound in steel — ninety million tons of sea water washing the Wall away as if it had never been. 

Outside his apartment building was a telephone booth. Leo entered it, pulled a worn business card from his shirt pocket, and dialed the number on it. The phone rang and rang. Leo let it ring. In his mind, he watched a wall of water wash over his apartment building (no great loss there), scour the Lower East Side, raze Greenwich Village, Park Avenue, Harlem, purge every neighborhood in the city, carry two-point-three million bodies to a mass grave in Central Park. He grimaced. Nuke tile Goddamn Wall. How skewed. Eventually a gruff voice answered the phone. “NYPD. Dennis.” 

“This is Leo Bugleman. It’s on for tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow! That’s quick. Where are they? I’ll have ‘em picked up.” 

“I don’t know where they are, Lieutenant. Shirley said they move every night. And there’s the other problem.” 

“What’s that?” 

“The nuke. It’s remote-controlled. They could set it off.” 

“Sounds like Plan B, then. You gonna go along with us, Bugleman?” 

“Plan B. I spot the detonator, then I call you in. I can do it— I’ll find some excuse to use my computer, tell you where to pick us up. What’s in it for me?” 

“You want out — we can get you out. Not California, though.” 

“It has to be legal. Passport and all. I need the right to work.” 

“We can get it. Looks like Pennsylvania or Connecticut — they owe us big ones. Any preference?” 

“Shit,” said Leo. “Pennsylvania, I guess. Not the garden spot of the world.” 

“For Christ’s sake, Bugleman. You’re out of CUNY twelve years and never worked in your field.” 

“Me and fifty thousand others.” 

“Yeah, well, nobody wants them, either.” 

ON THE WAY back, Nikolai swaggers and brags. Pancho is the cautious one now. He looks for lights in the distance, tries to listen for noises through the din. Leo stays close to Nikolai but does not try to speak. 

They reach the access tunnel easily, and are greeted by the stink of diesel and methanol fumes. Leo blinks in the bright light. Pancho moves cautiously to the grate, looks up through it. Carrie Nation’s car is again parked there. Its rear passenger-side door is open. 

Pancho and Leo move the grating aside. Leo climbs up, reaches down, and takes Nikolai’s hands to help him up. He hoists Nikolai out of the tunnel. 

Suddenly there are uniforms everywhere, and guns. “Freeze! Police!” shouts a voice. Rough hands seize Leo and Nikolai. They are pinioned, spread-eagled. Nikolai’s gun is taken. 

Pancho sticks his head up, looks around. “Oh, shit!” he cries and disappears back down the tunnel. Two policemen go down after him. “I’m Leo,” says Leo. “Let me go.” 

One of the police, a paunchy sergeant, looks at a holo he is holding. “You look like him.” He inspects Leo closely. “This guy is okay. Let him go.” 

As Leo is released, shots ring hollowly from the tunnel. Nikolai’s captor, startled, loses his grip on Nikolai’s right arm. Nikolai reaches for his shirt pocket. 

Leo is faster. Before Nikolai can get to the detonator, Leo has it. “It’s okay,” he shouts, “I have it.” He looks at the little black calculator and its recessed red button. 

Reporters are there, with microcams and sound equipment. They take pictures of Nikolai being handcuffed. 

A policeman emerges from the tunnel. “We got him,” he says. 

A police colonel, all gold braid and swagger stick, comes up to Leo. There is a deputy mayor with him. “You’re a hero,” says the politician. “You’ve saved New York.” 

“Screw New York,” says Leo. “They said I could emigrate.” 

The police colonel looks sour around the mouth. “It’s been arranged. Pennsylvania will take you. Your papers are being prepared.” 

The deputy mayor beckons to the reporters. As the microphones press in, he takes Leo’s hands, struts a little for the cameras. He draws a breath and begins to speak. 

“The citizens of New York thank you. You have saved the wonder of the post-modem world, the spirit of New York City— our Wall.” He gestures at the Wall, points up to its rim, where the bronze statue blesses the city. “The Wall Around Manhattan, for which so many heroic engineers labored for so long. And foremost among those heroes, the first and the latest — Christophe O’Flanagan and —” he pauses, smiles for the cameras, and pumps Leo’s hand — “Leo Bugleman.” He pronounces it “bug lemon.” 

Leo turns toward the Wall. He thinks of green Pennsylvania fields but sees streaks of rust and grime. He thinks of bird songs but hears the raucous cry of seagulls. He thinks of escape, but feels the anguish of two-point-three million imprisoned souls. 

Leo looks up and sees Christophe O’Flanagan, overlooking Manhattan like a warden. The hot damp Wall breeze strikes his face. His eyes blur, and he sees another figure by Christophe — Leo himself, a deputy warden in bronze. I saved your Wall, he thinks — I saved your Goddamn Wall. 

Ninety million tons of water whisper to Leo, pressing, promising. He looks at the deputy mayor, at the police colonel. He thinks of Pennsylvania. A tear rolls down his cheek, then another. 

“Goddamn Wall,” he says quietly, and presses the red button. 

* * * *

Bill Vaughn’s short fiction has appeared in Analog. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife Mary and has worked in the computer industry since 1969 

This story, he says, came into being when he was invited into an anthology about New York City in the future. He got the idea about a wall around Manhattan then, but wasn’t able to use it until years later— too late for the anthology, but just right for us.