“Something’s wrong!” he shouted toward the tower. Then he added, “It’s me, don’t nobody shoot!” which was absolutely the wisest way to approach anybody in Seattle, these days. “Something’s wrong downtown!”

From the top of the tower, somebody hollered back. “What’s going on? I don’t see no fire! I didn’t hear no dynamite!”

“No sir, the Station’s still standing!”

“What do you mean it’s…?” Swearing followed, and the sound of someone descending the brittle metal stairs.

“It’s starting,” Zeke said in a muffled grunt.

Rector pulled his hand away from Zeke’s mask. “It started already. We gotta go.”

They picked themselves up and took half a dozen seconds to relight their candles. Then they ran, guarding the little flames with their palms. Behind them came the rising noise and clatter of men whose plans had been thwarted.

As promised, the back of the house had fallen down altogether, exposing three stories and a convenient set of stairs that started just above ground level. The boys pulled themselves quickly along the stairs and scrambled up, up, and up that third staircase, then up another set to the wide, flat roof.

From there, the city looked strange; it looked blanketed rather than poisoned. They could even make out the moon above, and its cool, shimmering light gave them just a hint of where everything around them was located. Still, Rector kept his eyes on his candle. He moved carefully, and reached a hand back to grab Zeke’s shirt. “Stay close to me now. This roof is straight, but it might not be sound.”

“Might not? More like probably ain’t. The back wall didn’t hold up, did it? That doesn’t bode well for the roof.”

“Hang close. I don’t want to pull you out of a hole.”

“Like Huey pulled you—”

“Can it.”

“Sorry. You’re right. I don’t want to fall in a hole.”

Rector found the roof’s edge with his eyes only inches before his feet would’ve found it the hard way. “Stop!” he said—a little too loud, but Zeke obeyed. “Here. The edge is right here. Let’s put our stuff down and set up before things get crazy.”

With relief and exhaustion, they dropped the heavy packs that contained the big gaslights and all their accoutrements. Only once had they been shown how the lights were assembled, but it wasn’t as complicated as it sounded. While they worked by one small bubble of candlelight, they eavesdropped on the tower from behind a row of long-dead shrubs.

“All of them? At once?”

Rector said, “That’s Otis, I think.”

“It must be something with the gas, or something. Messing with the wires.”

Zeke asked, “Who’s that?” and Rector answered, “I don’t know.”

“That’s one goddamn hell of a coincidence!”