“He… took a phone call. Then he left.”

“What did he say? On the call.”

“I… I dunno. Not much. Something about meeting people somewhere. The hole. That’s what he said. And something about the Lincoln Tunnel.”

“He said that? The Lincoln Tunnel?”

“N…nah, he just said, ‘the tunnel’, but what else could he have–” Her words are lost beneath a wet, rattling cough. She drools a pink froth: spit and blood.

Skelly stands. Blinking back tears.

Carly lifts a limp hand. “Help… help me up.”

“I… can’t. Your legs…”

“I’m OK. I’m gonna be–”

Her eyes roll back in her head. Her body seizes.

Skelly stifles her own cry as she runs outside. The morning air feels good. She breathes deep. Tries not to think about it. Gets out her phone. Calls the police.

Then she sends a text to Burnsy’s pager.

WE NEED TO MEET ASAP 911.

Because she knows what’s happening and where.

Mookie tries explaining it. Tells Nora that when you blow a hole in a wall, you drill these holes. Different pattern for different jobs. On paper, that pattern looks like a series of connect-the-dots – meaningless to anybody who doesn’t know how to imagine the blast pattern of a series of dynamite sticks. He explains that right now – maybe today – the Sandhogs will be working on digging Water Tunnel #3 like they always do.

Except there’s a point where the tunnel passes near Tunnels #1 and #2.

New York City gets its water – all its water – from outside sources.

Cut off both tunnels, and with the third tunnel not expected to be finished until 2015, you destroy the city’s water source. That will render the city uninhabitable. People will be evacuated. It will be a no man’s land until they manage to pipe fresh water back into the city. Can’t bring in water by truck – the city at a conservative estimate uses over a billion gallons per day.

“That,” he says, “is how you kill New York City. You cut off its water, it’s like cutting off its head.” And the way you do that, he explains, is by fucking up the detonation of Water Tunnel #3 just as it’s near the other two tunnels. The wrong blast pattern – an ill-designed “pattern of dots” – will cause all three tunnels to blow. The water will cascade into the Great Below, but never reach the city.

That’s what they’re planning.

They have to be.

He doesn’t know why. But that has to be it.

Another boom below them. A sharp crack of stone like a glacier breaking. The tremor this time is sustained. He can hear them now, their wet flesh sliding against one another. The worm-gods as they rise to the vent of the Maw-Womb.