Anniversary Day Read Online Free PDF

the dirt and the chaos, everything familiar seemed like something alien.
    And the body, sprawled on the floor beside him, seemed vastly unimportant. Nyquist just had to be careful to stay out of the sticky and congealing puddle of blood.
    The blackout material over the window was some kind of nanofiber. Unbreakable, untearable, without proper authorization, and he doubted, given Alvina’s level of paranoia, that she would have left the protective authorization for emergency services. He didn’t even try, because he was inside, and the theory was that someone inside was there by invitation.
    He should be able to get the blackout material to lift on its own.
    His effort was almost anti-climactic. He rolled up the bottom of the screen, and it continued to roll the rest of the way. He’d volunteer to do a commercial for the manufacturer when this crisis was over. The only part of the house still functioning was the nanofiber blackout curtain.
    The window itself was so covered with filth—on the inside—that Nyquist couldn’t see out of it. He doubted anyone had opened the damn thing in a decade.
    One benefit of not having a conventional smart house was this window actually had handles so that someone could open it. He set one of the cudgels down, tucked the other underneath his left arm, and grabbed the window handle, wincing at the slimy feel. Then he braced himself and lifted upwards.
    For a moment, he thought the window was stuck. Then it slid up and open, sending in light and air and noise—sirens and shouts and moans—and a stench so sharp he thought of closing the window again.
    It took him a moment to recognize the smell. Burning chemicals. His eyes watered and he had trouble catching his breath.
    What the hell had happened?
    He didn’t have time to think about it. He squeezed out of the window into the noise and smell, and eased himself to the ground.
    The ground wasn’t ground, not really. It was debris, just like in the house. In fact, much of it might have fallen from the house. He surveyed the neighborhood—saw more collapsed or canted buildings. Parked vehicles had moved, and the air had a sludgy oily feel.
    A brown haze covered everything, and there was something wrong with the Dome.
    He squinted at it. The Dome looked closer, and he didn’t believe it was a trick of the light.
    He tried his links before he even had a chance to think about it, trying to see if the Dome had some kind of addition here, but got nothing.
    His links were still down.
    He couldn’t think about. He had to get help for Palmette.
    Two men—he thought maybe they were medical personnel from the ambulance—crouched over the male officer by the door. No other officers appeared in Nyquist’s line of sight. The crime scene lasers had fallen away from their moorings, sending their thin red lights into the air. That alone had added to the cacophony—warning sirens went off when light from crime scene lasers got broken.
    No one had fixed that, not in the last hour.
    His heart was pounding.
    The medical workers looked like they were working on the male officer. Nyquist didn’t interrupt them. Instead, he headed to the ambulance. If nothing else, he would get a wound repair kit himself.
    Inside, he found two other people on stretchers and one harried looking medico supervising them.
    “Your links working?” Nyquist asked.
    “I need your help here,” the woman said. “I need someone to monitor their vitals—”
    “I have an injured woman in the house back there who needs immediate attention,” Nyquist said. “Are your links working?”
    “No,” the woman snapped. “No one’s are.”
    “What the hell happened here?” he asked.
    “What the hell happened everywhere?” she asked. “I’m not in charge, nothing’s working and I have no damn idea. Now help me out.”
    “If I do, Palmette will die.” For all he knew, she might already be dead. “She’s bleeding out.”
    The woman looked at him with compassion. “If you