The Macys had chosen their den home because, like Unca Joe, it was an older building, mountain-solid and big enough to offer separate living areas for their tribal lifestyle. Conveniently, the structures just downtown were stories shorter but for one newer high-rise that had collapsed after the first chained Category 5s. As we went across 30th, I peered uptown from the Broadway intersection at the old pile rising over its nearest neighbors: nine or ten stories of weathered brick and stone. Below a raw blank where a heavy cornice must have been, a row of arched windows was still framed in alternating black and white. What held my eye was the washed-out red wrapping the downtown corner.

When the first kid-gangs moved in after Felix, the streets around Macy’s still dried off between storms, even high tides. Now there was water at all tides, shallow but enough so we could motor right up. Julian slowed a long block away, the engine quieting.

“In case someone’s finally woke to us . . .”

“Adders are a sloppy bunch.” Hannah bent to the canvas at her feet, undid some fastenings, and hauled out a tangle of metal parts, which she began to fit together into some sort of double-layered arc with a thick central shaft, pulleys, and a crisscross of connecting wires, but lightweight, like an enormous insect. I stared at it without a guess.

But Poppy murmured, “Slick! That’ll put a few down!”

“More than.” Hannah turned the thing our way. Matte black, as if swallowing the rising dawn. “Kill at fifty meters.”

“I had one when I was . . . y’know, before. Not that fancy, though. Yours is . . .”

“Douse the chatter,” Julian growled. “We’re right on top of them. Fuck, I wish it was darker.” At Sixth Avenue, he kept on west. “We’ll go around the back. They left a loading door open.”

Hannah nodded. “Like I said. Sloppy.”

“Over-confident. Gave us a chance. Dan should be waiting.”

No time to ask about Hannah’s weapon of choice. We came around the corner of Eighth at low speed into a tide of noise rolling down 35th like a flash flood: music so loud you heard only volume, felt its bass like a beating as it mixed with swooping cheers, catcalls, and whistles. Below the bass, an on-off vibration, like the pounding of a hundred feet, one of Rousseau’s let-off-steam basketball games on steroids. No question where it was coming from. The Macy’s building took up the entire block. Ears ringing, we floated toward the intersection with Seventh.

“No wonder you could sneak up on them,” Poppy said.

“How many are there?” The four of us felt mighty puny all of a sudden.

“Wasn’t this loud before,” noted Julian.

“Reinforcements? Maybe the Stormies went inside.”

“Nah. They’re just more lit.”

“Where’s the party?” Hannah peered upward.

“Fifth, sixth floor, mostly. But also scattered about. Y’know . . . private events.”